Jessica Galbreth: From Dark Art to True Light
CBN.com -I think it’s very, very likely that there was some kind of demonic possession going on here,” claims Jessica Galbreth. “I almost felt like there was a cloud of darkness around me.”
For years, Jessica was known worldwide as a fantasy artist. Her specialties were vampires, winged faeries, and haunting gothic goddesses.
“I would try to give them a look, like they were gazing at you with bad intent,” she says. “They had power and secret knowledge that all is wrapped up with the occult.”
It was a power that Jessica discovered when she was a child.
“I think I always had a strong sense that there was a supernatural world. It progressed from liking pretty unicorns to buying a tarot deck and doing readings for my friends and getting a ouija board. And we would ask for someone to come talk to us, inviting anyone, anyone, whoever ‘s out there, come talk to us. Things would happen all the time. Unexplainable things, terrifying things.”
She saw radios scream-on out of nowhere, as well as flying picture frames, broken glass, and complete power outages.
Jessica warns, “The spirits that you think might be ghosts, they’re not. They’re demons. We’re inviting them in so they thought, ‘let’s mess with these girls. Let’s terrify them!’”
Jessica stopped using ouija boards in high school… but kept seeking the supernatural. “I was looking for knowledge and power and secrets that I thought maybe other people didn’t know…I would say that people thought that I was a witch.”
More than anything, Jessica was curious about death. She says “I would read any kind of book I could get my hands on in the New Age about near death experience or the paranormal. My greatest fear was that there was either nothing after death and you’re just annihilated or worse.”
Jessica majored in art in college and began creating images that reflected her obsession with death. She married Josh, and they had two kids.
“I was very empty inside,” Jessica remarks. “Josh and I were really financially driven. We would set these goals for ourselves and once we would reach them, we would be dissatisfied again.”
As her artwork got darker, she began noticing that her daughter Julia was having abnormal fears. The images from Jessica’s paintings were becoming real to Julia.
Julia remembers well, “I was always afraid of my parents or I dying. I used to have nightmares of this troll giving me poison and then driving me away in this brown jeep.”
Jessica and Josh took Julia to a therapist, but the fear and the nightmares continued. Not long after this, the couple sent their son Joe to a pre-school, which happened to be Christian. The father of one of Joe’s classmates befriended Josh--- and began challenging the couple about their beliefs. Jessica’s mother and stepfather were Christians, and Jessica had decided she didn’t want anything to do with Jesus.
“I definitely believed in a creator, but I felt like he was removed and we were just kind of off on our own here and there was no--- no satan, you know, it was just all our imagination. I felt perhaps God was just a set of rules, a judgmental, scary, authoritarian figure.” Jessica confesses, “I was very prideful at this point and I didn’t need to be saved from anything, you know? I had fallen for that deception that it was trying to hold women down, it was a male dominated religion… and he was able to show me in the Bible how that’s not the case at all.”
As Jessica and Josh read the Bible, everything they had believed and not believed… changed.
“I read the gospel of John first and I remember looking at Josh saying, ‘Wow, I think this is it. This is the truth.’” Jessica continues, “My heart softened and I believed that Jesus was who He said He was, and He was God, and the Bible is the word of God. And I just remember Dan looking at us and he just said point blank, ‘Well have you guys accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?’ And we both blurted out ‘YES’ and we meant it. I remember Dan saying, ‘Well then, your eternity is settled. Isn’t that something?’”
When Jessica got home, she had to face the reality of the evil characters she’d created and introduced to others.
Jessica says, “I’m watching them come out of the printer and thinking about everything, and I just felt utter despair.”
Jessica called her mom. “I just said ‘Mom, I just accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior but I don’t know what to do. I don’t feel like He can forgive me.’ And she said, ‘For your art?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And she said, ‘Because it’s kind of satanic?’ It just really hit me like Yes. It’s the truth. And something told me to go open the shade. It wasn’t a voice that I heard. It was just in my heart, and I crawled over, tears coming down, and lifted up the shade. And there was a huge rainbow, just straight up over the field. And I just felt like God walked right in that room with me and said ‘I forgive you. It’s okay.’ I haven’t looked back since.”
Jessica and Josh literally dumped all of the dark artwork they had in their house. Jessica removed herself from everything to do with the occult, and the couple started going to church and studying the Bible.
Jessica proclaims, “If you come to Him, He will give you rest, and that’s what I’ve experienced. I feel like a big weight was lifted off our lives.”
Jessica is no longer afraid of death, and neither is Julia.
“I’m not afraid because Jesus is with me and he protects me,” Jessica states confidently.
Today, the message in Jessica Galbreth’s artwork is hope and life. It has nothing to do with death and darkness--- and everything to do with the light of Christ.
With tears Jessica concludes, “All of it to me is a miracle, that someone like me could find their faith, find Him. It’s like a veil lifts when you see it. And all the power or the intrigue that you thought was with the occult is nothing compared to the light of God and his supernatural power. I want everyone to know that God forgives anything and His grace is big enough for all of us. And all you have to do is ask.”