Dream of Jesus Invites Healing of Past

“I had, I had an idea that there was a God, but in my mind, God didn't love me. In my mind, I didn't understand. I'm sorry. No, I didn't understand that this God that was so loving...how He could allow these things to happen to me,” Amber recalls tearfully.

Amber Arias was the victim of childhood sexual abuse. She attempted suicide three times by the age of 12 and was committed to a mental hospital. “I had no hope. I just thought like, this is just how people treated you. I was dirty, broken, and nobody wanted me. And so when I got out of the mental hospital I decided I wanted to be loved and how am I going to be loved. I’m going to get loved because I’m going to give myself to these men because that’s what they want from me and I’m going to be loved. And so I, I, I had such a misconception of what love was. Um, and I just thought that if I just gave these men everything that they wanted, they would love me. And it just left me even more broken.” 

Amber continues, “I started drinking, um, I started trying to numb myself with pills, huffing paint, um, anything to make me high and numb, anything to just not feel reality.” 

At 15 years old, Amber, now an addict, became a mom. “I just wanted help. I just didn't know how. And I had huge trust issues. I didn't know who I could trust. So, in my addiction my children got taken by CPS and I remember that they wanted me to, to commit to a case plan to recover, to get my children back. I had no willpower; I had no support. I had no emotional support, and there were a couple times where the pain inside of me, I wanted to go there and do what they wanted, but I was so broken I didn’t even know where to begin.”

“Just cry. Just cry. And just, sometimes I would wish for death and sometimes I would just wish for somebody to help me,” recalled Amber. So, she began watching Christian television. “I wasn't around Christians. Yeah. I didn't know the Word. I didn't know Jesus. And I was flipping through channels and I came across this story, and I was watching The 700 Club and there was a lady that was sharing her testimony, and I remember turning that program off and just like crying out to, I didn't know who. I was just like, 'God, like if you're real, like, I need you to fix this.'” 

“I actually went to CPS and here I am what do you guys need from me? And they basically said I need to give them a clean drug test. I remember giving them a drug test and it was dirty and so I went to give them another drug test and that drug test was dirty. And they told me that, um, my kids were going to be adopted out and that my only hope would be to go into a residential treatment facility. And so, everything in me, you know, these walls I built around myself and not wanting to give up my will and what I wanted to do. I went in there. And I cried out everything, how angry I was with God. And I said, 'if You’re real, I asked you before to fix it and you didn’t fix anything, so if You’re real show me, show me who You are.'”

That night, Amber had a dream. “And when I went to sleep that night, I had a dream. And in my dream, I was walking with Jesus, and I could see His feet, and I could see His robe, and bright lights everywhere, and we're walking through a garden, and He was just telling me if I'd give Him my pain and if I would trust Him, that He would give me back everything that the enemy tried to take from me. And I remember waking up and the lights were different. I remember...just this pain that I carried in my heart. Something was different.”

“The court hearings just kept getting continued and continued. And in this time, um, I had found favor with actually the adoption unit that was trying to take my children from me. I have found favor with my psychologist, which wrote letters to the judge like, 'hey, you know, this lady is not a crazy woman. She's been through a lot.' You know, and so the Lord just gave me favor with everybody. I started going to church willfully and listening to the Word of God and allowing it to wash over my mind. And, um, just remember feeling the Holy Spirit for the first time. And, um, just, just knowing I wasn't alone anymore. Even if nobody was there with me, Jesus was with me.”

“We finally had the final court hearing, and the judge came out and he said, 'the bonding assessments come back, and you are the 1% that's going home with your children today.' And so, they gave me back my children. And I remember just like thanking God. Like I remember in the courtroom, I just dropped to my knees, and I was just like, 'You showed me You're real. You are real. And You, You did everything You said You were going to do. And I remember just committing that day, to the Lord, 'I'm going to live for You.' And so, a couple weeks later, we closed out the case and my children came home.”

Today, Amber is married and in process with Jesus Christ. “It's like an onion, you know? There was so much hurt and so much brokenness and it was really deep. Um, and so there are things that I still process or things that I may have stuffed because of traumatic experiences that come to the surface. Um, and I'm just, I know that I can come to Him, and I can give Him my burdens and I can give Him the pain and He helps me unpack things and...and walk through them. And, and, um, it's been different seasons of my healing. You know, there's been, um, deliverance, um, there's been a lot of just understanding in His Word, His promises for me and how He sees me. So, when the lies, you know, come from the enemy or shame or guilt or any of that, I can go to His Word and His Word tells me who I am in Him. And so that's the confidence I walk in.”