Taking Comfort in the Wrong Spiritual Realm

Marisol says, “I wanted to know what everything was all about, especially the spiritual realm. I wanted to see what they would tell me, that nobody else can see.”

For years, Marisol consulted psychics...but she wanted more than a glimpse into the future.

She explains, “I thought I was going to find the truth.  I was looking for a feeling and I didn't know it at that time.”

That “feeling” was love and security.   Her parents split up when she was 7, leaving Marisol and her siblings to bounce between their mom and their abusive, alcoholic father.

Marisol shares, “I know they both loved us.  It's just we just didn't see it.  I did not feel loved. I did not.”

What she did feel, was anger.  She continues, “I used to take it out on other girls.  I used to beat up other girls in school if they messed with me.  I saw all these other kids that had families, and I didn't have it.  So I wanted that.”

She kept searching until she found a family through her best friend.  Marisol says, “They’d invite me places.  They'd buy me clothes, you know, they loved on me where I wasn't getting it at home.  And believe it or not, the craziest thing about that is that they were into Santeria.  They were into witchcraft.  It wasn't odd to me.  I wasn't really scared.”

It wasn’t the first time Marisol was exposed to the occult.  Her dad had remarried, and his new wife from Ecuador called herself a witch.

Marisol remembers, “She would tell me that that she used to go to a witchdoctor.  He would do like cleansings on her and readings for her.”

Marisol didn’t participate in the occult practices going on around her.  But it did pique her curiosity.

She says, “I just wanted an interaction.  I wanted an encounter, I wanted to see something supernatural.”

At 18, she started her search, beginning with Catholic and Protestant churches.  But she says, “Since I didn't have that feeling, that encounter, I kept on looking."

So she started going to palm readers, spending the next seven years seeking truth and a future filled with love and hope.  Marisol says, “They’re very impressive.  They really draw people in because they can tell you things.  They'll tell you all good-good stuff.  They'll tell you who to stay away from, but I can’t recall them telling me like anything really bad.”

Then at 25, she married and later had a daughter.  Now that she had the family she always wanted, she stepped away from the occult.  Then after eight years, her husband left, taking the business she helped build, with him.  

Marisol says, “Oh, I was angry.  I got ripped off big time.  Greed came in and overshadowed him and then I was left alone with my daughter in the house.”

Again, she sought hope from the spiritual realm, this time visiting a Voodoo priest...who knew the name of her psychic.   

She says, “I got goosebumps when he told me that.  So what I was seeking, you know, this reality, this feeling and this supernatural encounter, I found it with this man.  So I asked him, ‘How do you know that?’ And he said, ‘Los muertos.’  And I said, ‘Los muertos? The dead?’  I can tell that these spirits were pulling on him to tell me other things...like telling him, ‘Tell her this.  Tell her this.’”

As she continued going back for more readings, her circumstances improved.  She believed the spirits deserved the credit.  

She says, “I actually got a-a very well-paying job.  I had a boyfriend.  They brought me love and they brought me lots of money.”

But when her boyfriend broke up with her, Marisol’s anger rose up again, sending her back to the Voodoo priest.  She even said she would join the order, until she witnessed an initiation ceremony.

Marisol explains, “This girl falls on the ground and they've got all the priests around her.  And when she gets back up, she gets back up like this: her body stands up on its own.  Her eyes are in the back of her head.  She's totally and completely possessed by some entity that they called up out of the ground with their drawings that they do on the floor.  That’s an opening to the demonic.  And she started like floating around the room.  I was in shock.  I literally ran out of there when I saw that.  I was scared.  I never went back to a psychic, ever.”

More desperate than ever, she took a suggestion from her ex-boyfriend and attended a church service.

She says, “The pastor was talking about how anger can cause us to do things that are very bad in our lives that we'll regret big-big time later.  I thought ‘Oh, my gosh, God knows that I’m angry and He's sending me this message through this preacher.’  The encounter I was really looking for, was with God.”

She signed up for a baptism in the ocean, and it was when she emerged from the water that she finally had a true spiritual experience.

She says, “I immediately accepted Jesus at that moment.  And since I needed to feel something God gave me something to feel.  It was the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit of God filled me, and I felt amazing peace, I felt this amazing energy.  The anger is gone, completely gone at that point.”

And in its place was the love she’d always wanted.  Marisol says, “He sought me and wanted me.  And so that security that He's given me, I-I didn't find anywhere else…with my own parents or my family or my siblings or with a man. I found it-Jesus gave it to me.”

Today, Marisol and her daughter live in Florida, where Marisol runs her own business.  She knows her search for the truth is complete, only in Jesus Christ.

Marisol says, “There’s no greater love for me.  You can always count on God.  He's so faithful.  He's so amazing.”