My First Bible
In gr. 10, something happened to me that was pivotal. I attended a Catholic high school. The school priest asked me if I wanted to join his confirmation class because my religious education teacher took notice of me. (I vaguely remember the invitation having something to do withmy responses to a morality questionnaire she had issued.) I agreed, as it amounted to a “get-out-of-class-for-free” card. This priest gave me my first Bible, and I read it. And so the first seeds of my faith were planted.
“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” – Hebrews 4:12
It was at that point in my life that I began to have exceptionally vivid dreams of a spiritual nature. These definitely had a very profound impact on me. In fact, they made me feel special and set-apart. But I did not change any of my behaviours or even become aware of their profound aberrance. In spite of my chronically abusive behaviour, I didn’t consider myself to be a morally deficient person. I just didn’t think much about it at all.
Adult Psychopathy
As a young adult of 21, I continued to get into fights with people. I once punched my boyfriend (who is now my husband) in the face, after he reprimanded me for spitting in the face of a bus driver who refused to comply with my illegal request to bring my dog onto the bus. Such altercations were typical for me, and persisted into adulthood, occurring even after I was saved, though much less frequently. I remember a fight with a clothing store manager and another with a clerk at a Chinese grocer’s. Speaking of the dog, I sometimes beat her. I had very poor impulse control.
I managed to graduate from college with honours, though I skipped many of my classes. University was a different story. I was simply incapable of applying myself diligently to my studies for a sustained enough period to graduate. I did, however, quit school with a stellar G.P.A. This is in part because I visited a certain professor several years later and asked him if I could re-take some exams to improve my grade. He told me it wouldn’t be necessary, and asked me what I had obtained on the mid-term exam for his class. I lied and said A-; he retrospectively and illegally modified my grade.
I will be blunt: I was a very good looking young woman. I have no doubt this had an influence on the soon-to-be-retiring old professor. But I actually deserved many of my admirable grades. If I were ever to return to school, I would be starting from an excellent vantage point, academically.
Yet I was headed like a freight train into a life of criminality and destruction. The seeds of evil that had been planted in me were maturing, and the Bible teaches that the fruit of sin is death:
“… each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” –James 1: 14-15
Then, something truly amazing happened which halted my downward spiral in its tracks.
A Personal Encounter with Jesus Christ
My boyfriend’s mother had recently become a Christian, and was witnessing to me a lot. At that time, I had been studying religions and mysticism because I was seeking to enrich my “profound occult wisdom”. The “God” question had really started to grow in my mind, because I was having vivid dreams and spiritual experiences that I could not easily explain or rationalize away. So, in typical fashion for me, I set upon a rational and systematic exploration of the world’s religious traditions. I prayed to God without realizing how guilty I stood before Him, as I had no inclination of myself as a morally deficient person. I asked God to reveal Himself to me.
And He did. : )
I will always remember the details of this dream as though I had it yesterday. I was standing in the kitchen at my parent’s house, rummaging through the fridge, when a powerful realization washed over me:
“Oh my God!” I exclaimed to myself, “My Lord is in my house!”
So I went to meet Him in my parent’s room; there was no need for Him to call me. He was wearing a robe of pure white; he had shoulder-length brown hair, and the most beautiful blue eyes I had ever seen. I instantaneously recognized this person as Jesus; there was no mistaking His identity. For a time, He just held me. I was filled with an incredibly powerful sense of unconditional acceptance and love, and I felt more profoundly relaxed, secure and at peace in His arms than I had ever experienced before in my life.
After holding me for a time and stroking my hair, He blew right into the middle of my chest- into my solar plexus- and He said something that I did not understand:
“Your heart was blocked, and you were in danger of dying, but you are going to be okay now.”
“Is it because I smoke?” I asked, for I thought that He meant that my arteries clogging, even though I was only 21 years old.
At this point I felt myself beginning to wake up, and it dawned on me that I had other questions I wanted to ask Jesus while I had Him with me! Just as the tendrils of consciousness began to overpower my dream, I mentally projected to Him an image of the Tree of Life, for I had been studying the Kabbalah, and I asked Him if it was good.
“It is good”, He replied, “But from now on, I want you to see it like this…” And the image I had projected of the Tree of Life was transformed before my mind’s eye into a triangle. In retrospect, I understand that Jesus was showing me the Trinity.
It is notable that I was not aware at that time that Jesus had imparted the Holy Spirit to His disciples by blowing upon them. When I first read this in the Bible, my heart melted.
For days following this experience, I didn’t even want my boyfriend to touch me, so profoundly had this dream impacted me. Even so, I did not- or could not- immediately change my behaviours, but I believe that it is at this point that my heart of stone actually softened. I accepted Jesus and started attending church occasionally. There, I felt incredible outpourings of love so intense that they literally reduced me to tears.
I had never experienced such a strong emotional catharsis in my life. To this day, I thank God almost daily for His intervention in my life.
Healing ASPD 