Watch: Boroka’s testimony

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Video transcript

Research says that healing any of these traumas that we have can take a really, really long time, sometimes a lifetime, but I got healed all in one season. Not because I’m strong, but because he’s faithful.

Hello. My name is Boroka. I’m married. A wife. 14 years with my husband now. And we have a six year old beautiful son. And this is the story on how Jesus restored my life.

My parents died before I was three years old. My father was a political trauma victim in a communist regime and I grew up in post communism. My mother died in a car accident, and I was raised by my grandmother. I experienced a lot of injustice and received a lot of pity. “Poor orphan.” “She doesn’t have parents, that’s why she behaves like that.” “It’s a lost case.” I hated it. So this hate, obviously, has been growing in my heart ever since. Other seeds were planted as well. “People leave and don’t come back like my parents.” “Men are unsafe. I cannot trust men.” “I’m alone. I must survive.” “And it’s on me. My strength.”

Now, if you look at literature and research around mental health, there is an ACE reality, ACE standing for Adverse Childhood Experiences.

Research shows that who has more than four of these traumas, they have an increased risk, statistically speaking, for addiction, depression, suicide attempts, chronic illnesses, just generally really destructive life outcomes.

I had eight out of ten, which represents the 1%, the lost sheep, those who will never make it. Statistically, at least, mathematically speaking, the path rarely leads to peace. Maybe it leads to prison or other kind of non-functional trajectory. And this is how I started out in my life.

But I was lucky because I had a grandmother who raised me so I didn’t end up in an orphanage. And she was a Christian, and my mother was before she died, also a reborn Christian. So I’ve been raised more or less in a Christian home, mostly Catholic, some Protestants, different denominations, Pentecostal. I’ve been exposed to Christianity, but as I grew, at 14, I walked away from everything “church”, Christ related.

I rebelled, and I started out my own initiation journey into adulthood. I was angry at the church. So angry. 

I saw so many inauthenticities and just people not being nice to each other and kind. And I said, how can this God be a kind God if people who represent Him behave the way they do? I blamed the church. I blamed the people. And I thought, it’s time to say goodbye to this God idea.

As a teenager, I built my identity on being beautiful. I craved to hear that I’m beautiful but instead I heard, “You’re tall and weird.” I was intellectually capable, my grandmother said. So she wanted me to study. But as I was growing, somehow people started to notice me and I became a model, a beauty queen, model, looking really confident. And finally, I got this identity of being beautiful. At least, being said that I’m beautiful. But inside, I was still angry. I was angry. I was lonely. I was rebelling.

And in all of that, just starting out my life at 20, just started university, just moved out from home, my grandmother was diagnosed with stage four cancer. In three months, she was gone. This was my first real collapse. When my friends were starting life, for me, it felt like it ended. That was it. You would think that, “Okay, now she would return to God,” but no, no, I was angry. “How could You allow all of this to happen to me?”

So I just went deeper instead into deception. I went deep into yoga, became a Reiki master. I was into astrology, Buddhism. 

I thought I’m going to get enlightened. But in reality, I was still very restless. I couldn’t find rest. And there it was, a turning point, when I was just about to enter this Buddhist teaching – I found the master that I was craving to have, a master, someone who points out the way how to live life, how to get enlightened, how to get something more than what I was experiencing – this teacher died and I was angry. No, I had no compassion, I was angry. “How dare you die on me when I’m ready to get my power and my enlightenment?” That tells you a lot of where I was.

I started to develop the fear of death. I experienced so many deaths around me that now even the master dies. I started being scared. “Why? Why is death all around me? Why everybody dies?” I was scared I’m going to die. My son is going to be an orphan. And I started recording even video messages to my child that in case I die, then he would have something to hold on to. I didn’t have any of those when my parents died. I was scared my husband’s going to die.

And I realised that 20 years of searching, seeking in all these practices and I still didn’t have peace. 

I still didn’t have anything tangible to show any fruit. I spent so much time, so much research, so much money. I fought so much with my husband.

And here I was, 33, with a three year old son and lost.

I was three years old when I lost my mom. So when I looked at my son, I was devastated. But funny enough, when I turned 33, my first idea was, “this is Christ consciousness age”. This is the year when Jesus died. He died at 33. So this is when this consciousness is going to rise – to use the language of new age. And funny enough, it was really the year when Jesus met me.

This was the year when my mother’s friends reached out and invited me for a meeting, so they can tell me about my first three years of my life. And I went and I met them, and they were still at the same church where my mother used to be with them, where I used to be with them when I was a baby and when I entered this church, although it was a different location, I felt like I’m home. Finally I’m home. And it was the most natural surrender when they asked, “Who wants to give their life to Jesus?” “Me!”

And I met the Holy Spirit, and the first time in my life, I felt loved. It was a full body experience. 

I knew peak experiences from Buddhism, from new age practices, because I’d been meditating daily. I knew how it feels when you’re high on something, but this was nothing compared.

This love was not just high, it was calm and peace beyond understanding. I was weeping and crying. And then I found out that these people had prayed for me for 30 years. Thirty years of prayer brought me back to the foot of Jesus. Intercession is powerful. Don’t think that you pray for three days for someone and it’s not working then something’s wrong. 30 years! But I’m telling you, it’s worth it. It’s worth it.

I thought that my inheritance from my bloodline was trauma, communism, Slavic doom, melancholia, drama. But actually my inheritance from my mother was Jesus Christ. I spend hours and hours every day with the Lord and the Lord sends me beautiful angels in the form of people who help me on this journey, all praying for me, listening to me, holding me in fellowship. I was not alone anymore.

And today I can tell you that the fear of death that I carried before, not even, nothing is in it. It’s broken.

The orphan spirit that I had before, the victim mentality I had before – all broken. Forgiveness has been released for me. 

Even the man who caused the death of my mother, the man I could never forgive, I could never even think of him – I forgave him, not by my own strength. No. Because there are things that are unforgivable for human flesh. But the Lord helped me because Jesus forgave on the cross before He died. So I can forgive.

All the nightmares that I had since a child, the voices that I heard in the night, all the monsters are gone. Sleep paralysis gone, completely.

And the spiritual emotional healing was just one facet, the most important facet, but also, physical healing followed.

Yeah, the anxiety lifted. I had autoimmune symptoms for more than 15 years that disappeared. I had six years of nail fungus, like to get detailed, nail fungus! All it took was a forgiveness and it disappeared. I couldn’t believe it but it is true! I have before and after pictures, it’s true! I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD and been able to function only with medications, especially since I became a mother.

I thought I would never get off because I tried by my own strength, but the symptoms are very, very strong once you’re in it and then you try to get off it. But here I am. The Lord saved me and freed me from medications, and I’m functioning. His plan is still working. He’s not done. New age could not keep me down. Fear did not win because Jesus saved us from it. He went down to hell for us. So, I thought that Buddhist tradition, the pointing out the great way, is going to be my entry point to enlightenment.

But instead I learned that my master is Jesus and He is the Way. And I don’t need enlightenment. What I need is to be saved and I need to be loved. 

And I have all the power of heaven through Him for His glory, for His kingdom work.

You know, as I was writing this testimony, my son came into the room to disturb me. He said, “Mommy, mommy, mommy, what are you doing?” I’m like, “Be loving, you’re writing your testimony. At least now, be loving.” So I said, “I’m writing my testimony to the Lord.” And he said, “Mommy, end it with the word, love.” Wow. So I will end it with the word, love.

I will end it with 1 Corinthians 13:13, “Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

I love reading stories to my child and we love the Grinch. I don’t know if you know it, but in that story, the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes bigger when he was welcomed back to the community.

Now my heart grew not just three sizes bigger, infinitely bigger, and I have to thank Jesus. Bless you all.