Embracing a Power Stronger than the Occult

“I shouldn’t have been born. My own mother didn’t want me. There must have been something wrong with me because nobody wanted to raise me, love me, take care of me, let me be their daughter.” Liberty says she grew up with deep feelings of rejection after her mother left her and her brother on their father’s doorstep. “She wanted to party. She wanted to do her thing and she couldn’t do that with two little babies. And so, you know, she just decided to give us up.”

After several turbulent years with her father, Liberty moved back in with her mom, who introduced her to drugs and alcohol at a young age. Her mother also exposed her to the occult. Liberty says, “She always had a large bookshelf that was full of witchcraft books with spells, chants, ways to curse people. She had tarot cards, a Ouija board. All that. Everything –that was normal in my mom’s household.”

When Liberty was 14, she had an argument with her mother’s abusive boyfriend and found herself rejected again. She says, “I came home off the bus and there was a box of stuff sitting outside. There was a note that my mom had left that said, ‘He’s in, you’re out. You have to find somewhere else to live.’ This is my reality. My mom doesn’t love me. She never wanted me, she doesn’t care.”

She says she found acceptance in the party scene and had relationships with men who gave her a place to stay and supplied her with drugs. “I did whatever I had to do to survive. I was alone. I was lost. The crystal meth and the drinking was very heavy I mean, it was a daily thing. It wasn’t like let’s go party on a Friday night. I mean, it was every single day, drinking, drugs, drinking, drugs. Staying up for days.”

She says she also began experiencing strange phenomena and some unsettling symptoms. “I was hearing voices. I was seeing things. I would get up in the night and I would feel like something was speaking to me. And was coming after me. I had sores, little open sores around my body.”

A friend’s parents set up a meeting with their Pastor. Liberty reluctantly agreed to see him. “He just said, ‘All these are symptoms of a demonic attack on you, and the only way to deal with it is rebuke Satan in the name of Jesus Christ.’”

Days later, she had a terrifying encounter. She says, “These dark images began to just cover the walls and they were like enclosing in on me like they were coming after me. I did what the Pastor said and I rebuked in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And then the fear was gone. And everything I was feeling was gone. The demons, everything, just disappeared.”

Liberty says she learned there was power in the name of Jesus but knew little else about him— until a few days later when she was watching TV and came across The 700 Club. She says, “Pat Robertson says, you know, is there anyone watching by TV that, you know, if you’d like to ask Jesus into your life, pray this prayer with me.’ I just felt like I needed this Jesus that could make demons flee.  I don’t have to wait to go to church and be called to the altar. I can just sit right here in my living room and accept Christ, you know.”

She surrendered her life to Christ, then fell into a deep sleep. When she awoke, she was in a struggle for her life.  She says, “Something was holding me down and not letting me up, not letting me speak. Feeling like a hand was over my mouth. I just began to say, Jesus, I was just trying to get the words out. And I said Jesus, it was very muffled Jesus and I felt like it was at the top of my lungs.  And the thing that was covering my mouth was slowly leaving, like letting go. The last thing I yelled was, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. And at that moment, whatever was holding me down removed itself and then I heard this really loud scream, like an evil, loud, wretched squeal, it sounded like it was leaving. It could no longer reside, because Jesus was now the Lord of my life.”

Liberty knew she was free. She began to throw away anything that connected her to the darkness she once accepted as normal. “I knew that the Lord was, basically in that one moment, cleaning up my whole life. He was just like, ‘It’s all going, you’re letting it all go. I’m taking it all away from you. You’re being set free.’ I finally was me. I was never me before. I was never—who’s Liberty, you know? Who’s this girl that was born with no purpose, no value, no reason to live? He took everything out of me and healed me of all the horrible things that the world basically dished out on me. My life has changed forever because of that day.”

Today Liberty co-pastors a church with her husband in Arizona, reaching out to people who need to be set free by the love of God. She says, “This is what I’ve been waiting for my entire life. This is what it feels like to know a love that you never got, you never received before. I was born for a purpose. And it’s to serve Jesus Christ and to do His work. He’s the only one who can set you free.”