Watch: Jeslyn’s testimony

Click here to go to our YouTube channel.

Video transcript

I realised how God had come to save me from generations of ancestors who worshipped Satan.

Even so, I was still so hateful towards my family members and I blamed them for all my bitterness. 

Hi everyone, I am Jeslyn. Since my childhood, anxiety was my closest companion and depression was the biggest part of my life.

I grew up in a very abusive home where I was enslaved to fear. Being the youngest, I was often neglected and bullied. 

My elder sister was jealous that she had to share our parents’ love, so she bullied me constantly. 

My mother feared my sister and hence, couldn’t stop her. 

Dad had his own issues, so he was ignorant of the whole situation. He became very abusive whenever he needed to release some stress or his anxiety.

Sexual perversion was so common in that household that when I was molested by a relative when I was four years old, I did not dare to speak up. I felt so dirty and did not know how to love myself and my body. I felt cheap and I constantly took showers numerous times a day, as a coping mechanism. This pattern continued into my adulthood. 

When I had just started working, I was locked in a car and was touched by a co-worker in a very inappropriate way, but my family suspected that I had given the wrong signal to the co-worker, rather than believe in my truth. 

I felt so accused by my own family, being questioned like that, even when I was still panicking from that situation. 

Over the years, I became used to feeling like someone’s commodity or an object for their pride, anger, jealousy, bullying, and verbal abuse.

It was a dysfunctional family upbringing, where the wicked ruled the household. My parents, our relatives, and our ancestors all worship idols at home. Several, including my late grandmother, regularly go to a shaman or a witchdoctor to ask for life’s directions for us all. 

This family has given their lives to Satan – the devil has a very strong foothold in our family members across all generations. 

For example, one cousin repeatedly hears an evil spirit telling him to kill all of us all the time. My dad constantly sees strange things or hears voices that are self-destructive. He thinks that the whole world is against him or out there to get him. 

Many family members worship whoever who seems to be earning the most money – be it legal or illegal. There was no law in that household.

All of my life, I thought money was the most important thing and a measure of success, as I was yearning to be heard. 

Over time, I became a slave to money and success, as I yearned to obtain a voice. I no longer wanted to be controlled by others. 

When I turned 13, I met my first Christian friend in school. Her mother took me in as her fifth child and was kind to me. Not long after, I accepted Christ at a youth church camp without hesitation. 

Home was a painful hell on a daily basis and I longed for a Saviour. I thought I finally found hope. 

But life did not get easier after I accepted Christ. Little did I know about generational curses or repentance at the time. Trouble seemed to always find its way to me.

In my late teens, I was bullied at school and that became a different hell altogether. I felt like an outcast most of the time. 

I grew up rejecting myself because I felt that I was a burden and unimportant, I didn’t feel a sense of belonging. Also, during a time of prayer, the Holy Spirit revealed to me that my parents had intended to abort me, so this had birthed a seed of rejection even when I was in my mother’s womb. 

Because I never loved myself, I would often self-sabotage in order to gain acceptance from the world. 

I allowed men and other people – people who claimed to be friends – to take advantage of me because I felt that I needed a way out of the hell in school and at home. Little did I know that I was signing up to another hell. 

I jumped from one abusive relationship to another toxic relationship where I was controlled, punished, and manipulated. 

In my final abusive relationship, I was controlled down to the clothes that I wore, the words that I spoke, and the life decisions I made. I completely lost my voice and myself again.

Over time, I became bitter just like my father.

I started comparing my life with others and grew jealous of others. I blamed God for allowing things to be so difficult for me and so smooth sailing for other people.

I hated my dad for apparently abusing my mum and then later in life, hated my mum for having manipulated me all my life. I hated my sister to pieces for bullying me. I hated them so much and swore that I wanted to be nothing like them. My heart had become hardened and as corrupted as theirs.

Whatever that I judged my parents and my sister for – their toxic relationships, their sexual perversions, their manipulation, their bitterness, their failures, their love of the world and of money – I found myself walking the same path in the end. 

I also came from a long line of generational addictions where my grandmother and dad were addicted to gambling, mum was addicted to clinging onto a safety net.

Later, I moved to the UK to study and before I was able to plug into any churches, I began to date a non-Christian out of loneliness and a yearning for a sense of belonging.

By that time, I did not believe that God had the best plans for me. I started believing in myself alone, though I still turned to God as my “doormat” whenever I couldn’t settle a problem on my own. I eventually stopped going to church altogether because I felt that it was irrelevant to my life and that no one in church would understand my struggles and why I would date a non-Christian. 

I was judging myself but I felt that the world was judging me. I became overly sensitive and easily offended. 

I would self-hate and self-reject, before others got a chance to reject me. 

My ex-boyfriend rode on these weaknesses of mine in order to win arguments with me – by leading me to believe Satan’s lies about myself. I isolated myself from any Christian community as well as other healthy relationships because I felt abnormal compared to them and I felt unworthy. 

My ex also discouraged me from attending church, when what he really wanted was for me to serve him and him alone. Due to my long-standing issues of not loving or trusting myself, I made him ‘god’ in my life. 

Worst of all, I wrongly believed that God did not love me anymore due to this decision of mine to be with this non-christian. 

This man gradually took full control over me. He was both mentally and physically abusive. There were a few occasions where he just repeatedly hit me so hard that the next thing I knew, I was on the ground, scared and panicked, unsure of what had happened, just crying and screaming.

Coming from an abusive family background, being abused was so normal to me that I did not think that I had to leave. Sometimes, in order to end a fight, I would wish that things could escalate to where he would hit me, so we “can get this over with” in order to get some sleep. 

This ex gaslighted me so often that towards the end, even my closest allies, like my childhood friends, were manipulated into turning their backs on me. 

They believed my ex’s lies that I had completely gone mad. 

Even though I heard the still small voice of the Holy Spirit inside of me from time to time, telling me to leave this ex, I still got engaged to him. My world at the time was all about this man and marrying him. I was also pressured by my dad to be married since my time was “running out”. 

I felt like I couldn’t breathe if the wedding plans weren’t in place – but little did I know that he had already chosen a new target and was ready to discard me at any time.

One day, miraculously, God redeemed me from all these. 

Through a series of events, God revealed that in fact, it was my ex who had wanted to leave me as he was having an affair with my best friend – but he didn’t want to be seen as the bad person. Hence, he needed to paint me as the mentally ill person who was apparently, suffocating him. 

That was the last straw. I packed my bags and left.

Looking back, I can see that it was by God’s grace that many obstacles helped to delay the wedding. It was also God’s miraculous plan that I found evidence of his affair with my best friend. 

Whenever I cried out to God during those times, I always saw an image of Jesus standing outside of my garden but I felt that He was distant. I had shut Him out for way too long. Even though I felt I had completely lost my dignity and sanity, there was always a yearning in my heart that I have to go back to God. 

God was faithful even when I was not. 

I began to seek God again afterwards, but still felt very much addicted to seeing my ex and pleasing him. No one, including myself, could understand why. It felt like a very real addiction, and no matter how many counsellors or friends that I saw, I couldn’t get off this addiction of wanting more recognition or “love” from my ex-boyfriend. Thankfully, a friend connected me to a mentor from church whom she thought might be able to pray for and counsel me.

This mentor was about to go on an extended sabbath but was prompted by the Holy Spirit to set time aside from her sabbatical to love me. And that was the first time that I felt God’s love for me in a tangible way.

When she prayed about helping me, she saw an image of my hands being tied up. In fact, that was how I have felt for my whole entire life – I was living in bondage to hell.

Even though Christ has set me free, I still returned to some “familiar” places of being someone’s prisoner. 

Later, as we tracked the roots of all my spiritual bondages to Satan, I realised how God had come to save me from generations of ancestors who worshipped Satan. Even so, I was still so hateful towards my family members and I blamed them for all my bitterness. 

The mentor made me realise that they too, had been in bondage by Satan all their lives and that they have provided the best they could to me – even though they were constantly living in fear. For example, they tried to provide the best education they could possibly afford for me.

My mentor continued to counsel me and pray with me over the next year or so.

I was encouraged to forgive my parents after repenting for all my hatred towards them, as I laid down all their wrongdoings towards me at Jesus’ feet.

After that, I felt like I had won a battle against Satan through Jesus. I learnt to love them and forgave my family members as God has forgiven me. 

It was a tough battle but I no longer blame them. I no longer believe the lies from Satan which used to separate me from my family. I have learnt to look at my family members with love and pray that one day, they too, can come to Christ and find freedom, hope, love, and peace, like how I have.

Later, I repented and cut all spiritual ties with all the occult, witchcraft, and idol worship – not only from my family and ancestors, but also the spirits my ex and his family had followed.

The most miraculous thing happened after that. I no longer felt the need to go back to my ex-boyfriend and I was finally able to cut him out of my life once and for all, after nine years of deep addiction and bondage.

I was also given a new heart by God and reassured of His love for me. 

He promised to never forsake me and to redeem my broken life with triple blessings. God forgave me for prostituting myself to different idols and revealed that He has a plan for me, one that I can’t imagine.

As I was kneeling in repentance before God, my mentor saw an image of Jesus behind me, weeping over me. God assured me that I am not ugly, and that I am made in His image. This meant a lot to me. All my life, I have been told by numerous people how ugly I am. My sister would not let me go, unless I admitted and acknowledged that I look like a pig or a monkey. I now no longer believe in Satan’s lies.

Slowly, I began to see the bigger picture of how God repeatedly tried to redeem me from Satan’s schemes and why I’ve had to go through all the trials and tribulations growing up. 

I also realised that I did not put God above the worldly things and people around me. Hence, I chose the world each time I was tempted by Satan to go back to my “old ways”. 

I was busy looking for solutions on my own, instead of trusting my Heavenly Father to provide. I found myself exactly on the same path as my mother, becoming more and more like her while I judged her – it was a downward sloping path to the destruction of my soul.

Though losing the relationship with my ex was so painful – I felt like my world had literally collapsed on me – I have now regained eternity and freedom from God. Later, God also provided a wonderful Christian man as my husband – a promise He has fulfilled through a vision He had shown my mentor three years earlier.

Repenting and renouncing the idols and witchcraft of my family helped remove many spirits that were blinding my spiritual eyes. I finally feel at peace and I am no longer enslaved to addiction for acceptance from the world. 

I no longer worry about my life on earth as this is just temporary – this is not the end.

Today, I thank God for all the sufferings I’ve had to go through, as I have finally found my purpose in His Kingdom – I am called to lead other young women to Christ and to guide those who are neglected and those who grew up in very abusive homes. I will never again place anyone else above God in my life and I am now finally on my way to freedom through Christ.