Twice in one day. Wow! God has so much to say to you all. Ok, yes I know, technically its me. No worries, in time you will understand that, as much as I love to write, I cant put a sentence together without Him wanting me too. Trust me I have tried.
So lets talk about how I got here. I mean yes, God. But God has a plan for all of us, remember, I keep saying it. Well let me introduce you so some of the key players in my journey.
Mr. Michael Domenech in the blue, [yes the one w the dimple]is my loving husband and then you have Samuel Snow in the white. Samuel is Jesse's brother. They have a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school and surprise of all surprises... Its where I found God. Again.
No need to read that over dear, I didn't mean their church or a church. No. In a gym. God is not overly picky as to where you find Him, as long as we find Him.
Now before I fall into this particular story, I want to thank the ever sweet and amazingly talented Tori Ishikawa for allowing me to use her picture. You should all go check out her Facebook, she is truly awesome! I'm a fan. Obviously!
So back to Snow Jiu-Jitsu...
Yes, I found God in a gym. Or rather, that is where I really truly noticed that something was missing in my life. Now wouldn't I just love to give you the "I walked in and felt God and it was perfect and beautiful and happily ever after" but life is a little more complicated than that because the devil doesn't want you to find God, but who cares what it wants?
Through God's incredible planing Michael joined their school and I was very reluctant to go, even once, to show support. I had a long list of excuses I plan to spare you from.
So in order to save myself the headache of the arguments that without a doubt would last long weeks, I made myself go to the gym more than once. I hated every second of it. I had a very real sense of discomfort being in that building.
Lucky for me, Michael isn't very good at introductions, he kinda assumes that people will assume that I am his wife by the simple fact that I am following him around like a lost puppy dog and so it usually takes a meeting or two before the "Oh! by the way this is my wife Amie" comes out of his mouth. If this hasn't happened when you met me, considered yourself lucky!
However, the first time that proper introductions were put in place, the simple act of both brother's shaking my hand sent me, quite literally, running out of the building as soon as I could escape without looking entirely too weird.
I remember it like it was just yesterday, and it wasn't. It was an open mat event and I took my kids and let them play outside for the rest of the time we were there, while I hid in the car. I did that a lot in those days, hide in the car but I will get back to that.
That night, I went home and it was the first time that Samuel and Jesse made an appearance in my nightmares, or that is how I saw them, then.
In this dream, I was inside the gym and it was dark and I was alone, still I felt very uncomfortable there but there seemed to be no way out. I started to get desperate, more than anything I knew I needed to get out and that was when I first saw them. They looked so serene yet I felt so threaten, and then suddenly I was standing in the middle of the mats and the mats started to open up and I could see and feel the dark pits of hell, and the demons were pulling me in, drawing me back screaming words that made no sense to my ears, and both Sam and Jesse were over me and they were pushing me further down, and at the same time pulling me up. It was so confusing...
I struggled, I screamed, I tried very hard to wake up but Michael couldn't hear me or feel me, he slept through the whole thing and I know I was trashing around. I went weeks with no sleep after that. Not just because of the dreams which was almost always the same dream, but because when I woke up from these dreams, I felt the hot and sticky hands, over my mouth, ankle and wrist tying me down. Keeping me quiet.
There was a variation of the dreams where I was being thrown off of Victory Tower by them [if you don't know what that is, Google Victory Tower in Fort Jackson, S.C] but in the end, night after night they were trying to kill me. Or were they?
That is how I saw it for a long time. Avoided the gym, avoided anything where I could run into both brother's together. Yes, You can laugh now. See, I knew that Jesse was soon to leave for Brazil, Michael had told me, so my very human brain told me that as long as I stayed away until Jesse left, U would be OK because then THEY couldn't kill me because there would only be one brother left. Genius, right? WRONG!
Fast Forward to January 1st 2013, after about 3 weeks of little to no sleep and having cut myself off from the world and now other problems are starting to jump out of the woodwork and I am frustrated, because the money is gone and the traffic is long and my car is a stick shift and the kids wont stop fighting and blah blah blah blah... I was ready to jump off a cliff myself!!! I was in such a dark place. And there it was. This very soft voice as I am yelling in my car,at no one in particular, because I was by myself, about how I was so sick of the proverbial hamster wheel and how things get better and then go back and we just never seem to make any real progress and "Reach out to Jesse" that is all that the voice would say to me. "Reach out to Jesse".
I knew exactly who that voice was. God! But Jesse and Samuel were trying to kill me and avoided them, so why on earth would I ever reach out to Jesse?
I hate to tell you but, this argument, which was totally one sided, went on for a week. I yelled and screamed and got frustrated and wondered when things were ever going to be better and He stood firm when He said "Reach out to Jesse". No more, no less. No explanation as to why.
Stubbornly I refused, out of fear. Day after they day I heard God tell me to reach out and I had another hundred excuses for why I wouldn't. I'll spare you those as well.
But desperation got the better of me, I wanted peace and needed to find answers. I felt lost and angry and abandoned and I needed to do something about it. And so I did. I sent one very strange and rambling short message, and I gave him a way out in it. "If you don't feel comfortable taking to me, I understand." I don't know if I expected him to take the way out or if I just hoped he did, but what I can tell you is that I never expected a reply.
The reply did come and with it, the start of how I became the person that I am today. I found God and the answers which I was searching for, but I also found new friends.
After a handful of days messaging back and forth, Jesse with his great faith in God and me so beaten by life that I wanted to smack the cheerfulness out of him, Jesse and I had our first Skype chat. I wont go into the details of it right now for that too is a long story, what I can tell you is that while not the easiest of process, the choice of going through Deliverance has been the best ever.
Over Skype, Jesse with the help of Michael prayed over me and commanded the demons attacking me to leave. A few days later, the dreams made perfect sense. Michael finding this particular gym made perfect sense. It was part of God's plan all along and its not done. It is all still happening.
I would like to explain what God explained to me was the real meaning of the dream. It wasn't me. It was never me. Yes, they were killing but I was not the victim. The demons were. The fear I felt was very much real, but it wasn't my fear to feel. The enemy's minion's were scared, are scared, of these brother's because they know what God has in store for them and how He plans to use them and their business. In the dream they were sending the demons back to hell while trying to pull me out of the place I was in. But I allowed myself to believe that their fear was my fear, that it was me they were trying to harm all along when it wasn't.
People do not realize that this fear, while not meant for us to feel, is very real and we do feel it. I recently heard of someone else who has felt/is feeling afraid of a person who is also very close to God's heart. I don't have permission to speak on the subject, but I know all the parties involved and I don't know how to approach the subject and just let them know the true reason behind her fears. No one should have to live with this inside us. That dark uncomfortable sensation that the person near by is something to run and hide from because, its not us who are trying to run and hide, but what is within us and how we allow it so much power over how we feel and what we feel and even what we think and how we act and the choices we make.
I have seen bits and pieces of what is to become of the people that surround me and the signs and wonders that we will see take place in the gym, it will be so much more than a gym and so much more than any church can ever hope to be, because you will feel God's presence and know, like I did, that there is something amazing happening there. . .
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