Voice From Heaven Serves as Witch's Wake-Up Call

“They had put a name on me called ‘Black Widow,’ says Merari. The black widow actually lures her mate and actually after she is done with her mating, then she kills him. She destroys him. And that’s exactly what I was doing.”

Merari grew up in a broken home. Her father left the family when she was six and her mother had to work several jobs, leaving her in the care of a babysitter.

“She was married to a police officer. The words he used were very controlling. I remember him putting such fear in me. And I felt like ‘I belonged to him’ is pretty much the message he was telling me. And I felt like then it was my fault. And a hatred for myself began to build.”

The sexual abuse continued for a year before Merari’s mother noticed a change in her daughter’s behavior and intervened. But when Merari was eleven, it happened again. This time, it was a friend of the family.

“He was confronted. And I was brought in to the confrontation. And he opened the Bible and he put his hand on the Bible and he swore. And I just remember looking at the Bible and I just remember making the choice, ‘God does not exist.’ And I decided I will never in my life want to hear God, the name of God, or anything about God ever.”

Merari became rebellious. She was soon drinking, smoking pot, and skipping school. She endured a series of abusive relationships and had three children while still a teenager.

“I felt like I became a label. I felt like I had written all over myself, ‘I’m fatherless,’ ‘I’m alone,’ and ‘I have no protection’. So come and hurt me, use me, abuse me. Because it just continued to happen everywhere I went.”

When she was 18, Merari felt she had found the answer to her problems when she was introduced to witchcraft and the goth subculture.

“They seemed so together. And they kept always talking about power, and how you can have power to control someone else. And all my life I was controlled. And now I wanted to control.”

She was baptized as a witch and given a special name. She began to cast spells to control those around her.

“I just had this spirit of promiscuity and sensual over me that I can have anyone that I wanted. And I didn’t want anything with them. I just wanted to control them. I felt like I can now protect myself. I felt like I can protect myself now from men like that, and from anyone else that would hurt me.”

Merari continued to advance in the occult, but when the other witches wanted to initiate her children, she decided to break away. She moved out of town to make a fresh start. She thought she had left it all behind, but one night at home, she had a terrifying vision.

“I see this beast just standing in the yard. And it was a form of a lion but he was awful looking. And I looked and he opens his mouth. And I noticed someone is in his mouth. And so I yell out, ‘Oh my God, he’s got someone in his mouth!’ And when he turned, the person right before he’s going to swallow, I looked and I saw it was me. And I saw myself and he began to squeeze and I can hear my bones cracking. And I can hear myself gasping for air and suddenly right before I can see blood just gush out of my mouth. And all I can do is [gasping].

“And I hear a voice and he said, ‘Merari, I’ve been calling you for a long time. If you don’t come to Me now, he’s going to kill you.’ And he said it one more time, but this time He said ‘Daughter’. And all I remember was just falling on my face and just saying ‘God’. And I remember saying ‘Lord’ and I don't know why. I’ve never used that expression in my whole life.

“And I said ‘Lord, please don’t let me die. I receive You. I don't know You. And I’m sorry. But thank You for showing me where I was.’ And I just woke up. And my body, my spirit hit my body and I knew that I just had the most incredible encounter with my Creator. And that He called me ‘daughter’. He was my Father. He was my Father. I never heard a man say ‘daughter’.

Merari surrendered her life to Christ that night.

“I felt like different. I just felt clean. I felt something I’ve never in my life. God just came for me. And when I learned some of the scriptures, I knew that He’d left the 99 for me. I was that one. And it’s just amazing. And I knew I was different. I felt renewed. I felt free.”

With the help of a friend, Merari found a church and was baptized a Christian. She renounced her past involvement in the occult and has traveled overseas to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Her children are now grown and she is married and mentors young women like herself, pointing them to the savior who has taught her how to trust.

“I have no control. It’s amazing how I had to relent everything. He allowed me for a little while to have control. And so He can teach me what was the difference. And so I learned, He taught me, little by little, how to be a daughter, how to surrender, how to listen, how to discern. It was just amazing how He’s so patient. Because He allowed me to go through the process and help me through my own deliverance. I learned that God was my true Father and there’s no one that can replace Him. And He fulfilled me.”