My Testimony- BUT GOD. ( Through Fire With Faith)

I'm alive today, only by the GRACE of the one true living God. He had purpose for me, he chased me down, he saved me over and over and again... God had his hand on me, the whole time. God had his hand on me even during the years I held him at arms length and I was being relentlessly pursued by the enemy, sustaining and surviving attack after attack... The Lord kept me and caused his face to shine upon me. The LORD was not done with me.... Did I run from my anointing, Yes... many times. Did I end up, metaphorically speaking in the belly of a BIG FISH, YES... many times.

My story, my history is long, complicated and drawn out. For the purpose of a shortened version, I am going to focus just on the last decade or so. My name is Priscilla, and I am passionate about Jesus, about God and his Holy Spirit. Often I hear many refer to a Job season or a David season.... well, The enemy has been trying to take me out since before I was born. My life has been one battle after another BUT the enemy did become particularly vicious, relentlessly attacking me over the last decade., In every area of my life. the last decade has been a Job, David and Joseph season, simultaneously. In November of 2013, I had a prophetic dream ( I have had and continue to have many). A dream of my mother who had passed away after a brave battle with cancer, 7 years earlier. While I have known I have been prophetically gifted since I was a child, and I always believed in God, growing up catholic, I didn't know God the way I do now...In this dream, I was with my father and siblings in his childhood home. Outside the sky was darkening and we were boarding up windows. As I was frantically attempting to secure the windows as the sky became increasingly menacing and the wind had started to pick up, looking out the back patio windows to the back yard, there I saw my beautiful mother, ( who, with hindsight I now recognise was the holy spirit appearing to me as my mother) and I immediately ran out to her, telling her that she had to get inside.. She was so calm and simply said " I cant come inside, but Cilla there is a storm coming, you need to prepare for it." In this dream, I could see the clouds blackening, swirling, like a tornado was about to drop to earth, I frantically said to her " I know mum, I can see it coming, while trying to drag her inside. She stopped me and grabbed my shoulders firmly, and said, with so much love, but so firmly : NO Cilla, YOU don't understand... A STORM IS COMING, YOU NEE TO PREPPARE!.. " she then turned her head to the side driveway, that ran down one whole side of my fathers childhood home. I followed her gaze, and saw a black hearse, with a brown coffin leaving the house. I immediately started crying in the dream. She grabbed me and pulled me in to the tightest hug and whispered in my ear, " that she loved me so much, that I needed to be brave and strong to survive what was coming". Then I woke up, screaming in real life, tears streaming down my face, I could feel her embrace still and smell her perfume. It shook me to my core, that dream has never left me. I can look back now and see, BUT GOD. It was the holy spirit warning me, prophetically of what was to cone.

Six weeks later, I received a phone call that blew my world apart. My father had died suddenly of a massive heart attack.. I never got to say goodbye and as i lay my head on his Ice cold chest in the mortuary, wanting nothing more than to hear his heart beat again, I knew... the holy spirit who appeared to me in that dream as my mother, wasn't showing me her funeral again... I was being shown my fathers funeral, his hearse, his coffin, leaving his childhood home... and foreshadowing the death and the onslaught of the enemies attempts to literally take me out of this world, that would proceed to hunt me for next 8 years of my life... in a vain attempt to stop me from reaching and walking in my purpose for the LORD.

6 weeks after burying my father, I was diagnosed with Diffuse systemic Sclerosis, a severe and deadly auto immune disease , that was the first of many diagnosis over the proceeding years. My Job season had begun. that was in early 2014. the next three years, I became sicker and sicker, then in January of 2017, I went into a severe and deadly renal crisis, skirting so close to death, that my Dr's said I was only about 4 hours away from dying, drowning in my own fluid as my lungs filled with fluid and my platelets sheared, BUT GOD... the first of many encounters I had with the Lord saving me during that time... Fast forward a year, I'm living with malignant hypertension due to the scarring on my kidneys ( I still see my kidney doctors once a year) surviving a violent and consequently escaping and abusive marriage,, BUT GOD, who's grace strengthened me, kept me from going insane.

What followed were numerous dances with death including but not limited to a brain bleed, and a minor heart attack. BUT GOD. I bled into my head for 5 days. I didn't know it at the time, but it was a slow bleed. All I knew was the excruciating pain I was in. By this stage of this season, I was well versed in excruciating pain, so much so, I started calling pain my friend. On the fifth day, my speech started coming in and out. I knew I was in trouble, I also knew that death was immanent, should I dawdle. ... Much like Job, who longed for death but remained faithful to GOD,...i longed for death, so I chose to dawdle, purposely. In my mind, it was a sure way to make the pain end. BUT GOD had other plans. Consequently, I ended up having emergency Bur hole surgery to evacuate a sub Dural haemorrhage over my left temporal lobe, its the part of the brain where the speech centre resides. I survived that, remarkably and miraculously with no lasting deficits because of GOD's grace and favour. This is a very condensed version of events. My intention in giving my testimony, is to Glorify God, my beautiful Jesus, who was the only one there during the nights the pain was so intense, I could barely endure, comforting me, loving me, holding my hand, , helping me carry MY CROSS, strengthening me and by his Grace and favour, declaring " I'm not done with you yet!" Recent blood work shows no sign of auto immune markers or disease present in my body, Praise God.

My true complete surrender came via the TV show the Chosen. It showed up on a day in 2020, I had made the decision to end my life. I was led to it, Just in the nick of time. I remember, laying on my bed, scared, desperate and I WAS DONE. I was just DONE. Within hours I would be taking a bunch of morphine tablets, going to sleep and never waking up. Because I had meticulously timed and planned my departure from this world, I had a few hours to kill. By a miraculous turn of events, episode 1 of season 1 appeared on my YT timeline. I vividly remember, looking up and stating out loud " really, I'm about to end my life and this is the best you got, ok..., I'll give it five minutes!".. He didn't need five minutes, it only took about one. I was hooked, and as the episode progressed, considering its subject matter focus on Mary Magdalene, her pain and her thoughts to end her life, through the blessing of this show, I was delivered.

YOU SEE I had woken up that day, determined of two things: 1. My pain WAS ENDING that day and 2. I was hopefully, going to meet my maker. Both those things happened that day, just not the WAY I PLANNED!!! He had other plans!!!!.I know this now, " His pans are not our plans" and according to Jerimiah 29:11, His plans are way better. He turned up and was so palpably in the room with me. I knew what I had to do. So I did it. I surrendered my pain... ALL of it... I gave him everything. I had spent a life time carrying things that were never mine to carry. I had spent a lifetime carrying the pain of being brutally and relentlessly broken over and over again. Called everything under the sun, but what I was and AM. A CHILD OF THE MOST HIGH GOD. A Daughter of THE KING. I lay at his feet and I wept,... for hours and hours and hours. I gave Him the pain, and in return, He gave me my life back.

My surrender and wrestle continues daily, but there is no other path for me. The LORD is a promise keeper. You'll see by the photos, He has been restoring me, healing my body over these last few years since my YES. While I still have some scarring on my kidneys, I KNOW he is healing that, as far as everything else, my hair has grown back, ( I Had bunches of chemotherapy as well as endured the process of an Autologous stem cell transplant) my health has returned, my physical strength, my muscle tone, all returned. I run kilometres a day. I do weights 3 times a week. I'm stronger now, than I was even as a teenager. I am so surrendered, that I even allow GOD to tell me what I will eat in a day.. or lead me to fast, which He does, ALOT!

Of recent times, I have once again had to endure being called out of my name. Being called everything but what I am, a CHILD OF GOD. I've had to endure the gossip, the lies, being told about me. I want to make this clear, I fall short, all the time. But I have a repentant heart and try to live as righteously as I can. This time with eyes firmly planted on Jesus, the name calling. the false witness was water off a ducks back... Because, I know who I am to Jesus and what he thinks of me... No matter how loud the enemy gets, he can not change this. God is the vindicator. so now I don't concern myself with the things of man, or their opinions of me... that's truly none of my business.

God is good, even during the hardest of times. It's been quite a few years since these photos taken by one of my oldest and dearest school friends Carrie, It captured a time where my vulnerability is evident and I was once again faced with a battle for my life after having already battled and survived numerous battle before. BUT GOD kept me, protected me and I again, overcame. I smiled through the pain, I survived the relentless and vicious attacks of a desperate enemy. By God's grace. I survived everything that was meant to destroy me. As sick as I look in the first few pictures, it's a humbling reminder that, the breath we hold in our lungs, is truly the greatest gift anyone can receive from GOD and for his GLORY. I am grateful to my God, the one I trust, the one I call my refuge, my fortress, my friend, the love of my life... that His will for my life prevailed then and will prevail moving forward as he continues to restore to me the years the locusts ate... As he continues to work the miraculous in my life daily. I am a testament to one true Living God, Jesus Christ, Lord and saviour... to His goodness, to his Grace, to his Mercy, To his long suffering, to the fact he is still the God of miracles... Glory be to GOD.... I will praise Him and defend Him, till the day I die.

God is good, My flesh endured the pain BUT it's by the grace of God, in his unending goodness, compassion and mercy that I survived all that was sent by the enemy, to destroy me.

As I look in the older photos, juxtaposed to the more recent photos attached taken within the last two months, I am grateful to God, my best friend, that He decided to let me keep breathing....I Praise you Lord, I love you LORD with every ounce of my soul, heart and spirit.

My Faith in Jesus Christ of Nazareth, is unwavering, steadfast and will remain that way, regardless of circumstances. It was literally forged in the refiners fire. And with my eyes firmly planted on you Father and with my hand tightly in yours, I simply say to you now.. " I TRUST you Lord, and cant wait to see what's next!"