Unbreakable Spirit E-Book

Gabriela With

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 501

Beschreibung

Shattered. Lost. Hopeless. That was me. Abuse and violence stole my childhood dreams, leaving me trapped in a world of pain. But in the darkest hour, a whisper of hope emerged. This book is the story of my remarkable journey - a journey of healing, self-discovery, and ultimately, the transformative power of faith. It's a testament to the courage we all possess to face our deepest fears, the strength of forgiveness, and the unwavering love that guides us through life's storms. Within these pages, you'll find a beacon of hope, a reminder that you are never truly alone. If you're searching for the light to overcome your own struggles, this book is for you.

Leseprobe

For Téo van der Weele, who became the father I never had and for Jackson Ambasse, who died much too early. Jackson, nunca te esqueceremos!

Contents

Prologue

1. The Voice

2. Images and Visions

3. Disappointments

4. God’s Fatherly Love

5. Sinti and Roma

6. The Price

7. Love your Enemies

8. The Cry

9. The Isaiah Scroll

10. New

11. The Gift

12. The Miracle

13. Piece of the Puzzle

14. On His word

15. Short World Travel

16. Gratitude

17. The Call

18. The Miracles of Mozambique

19. Hunger for More

20. Supernatural Peace

21. Wrong shoes

22. Father Love of God

23. Books of Heaven

24. Where is my Place?

25. The Arrow of Love

26. Creative Processes

27. Go!

28. Esther Revelation in Hitler House

29. Prayer of the Heart

30. Loving Father

31. Borders

32. The Basement

33. The Fight

34. My Before

35. Jordan River Crossing

36. The Sabbatical Year

37. Limitless Peacocks

38. God’s Plans

39. The War Scroll

40. A Glimpse of the Future

41. Ten Thousand Puzzle Pieces

Epilogue

The Journey Continues

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Image attachments

Prologue

“I hate you! You are incapable of getting anything done at all. You disgusting creature.”

His words hammered on me like concrete drills. Smack. My cheek hurt from the slaps. Right, left. Again and again his hand shot into my face. Hurt the soul more than the body.

“You can’t do anything right, you are nothing, you will never become anything.”

His face, distorted by anger, was a reminder that I had heard these words all too often in my life. They had to be true. Again his fist ram into my stomach with a muffled bang. With a dull thud I struck the kitchen cabinet. The dishes clanked as if they were joining in the maelstrom of his ominous words.

“You may be a good whore, but I’m not going to let you ruin my life.”

The stinking smell of alcohol hit me. I had given up trying to keep check of his alcohol consumption. I had given up emptying his glasses. It was hopeless. He grabbed me by the shoulders and tried to shake the badness out of me. The cupboard buckled under the echo when he hit me against it. I didn’t fight back any more. Let it happen. His right hand gripped my neck and I felt the pressure of his thumb taking my breath away.

“Scum, disgusting scum you are.”

I no longer had the strength to do anything. The darkness inside me had eaten away all light.

“I’m going to kill you. The world is better off without you.”

His voice mingled with my thoughts. Did his words or my lifelong beliefs suggest I would never have any value? His fists pelted down on me. With a final yelp from the glasses, I slid down the glass case. My legs failed me. Huddled like an embryo I lay on the bare, cold tiles. Just as in the womb. Rejected, aching, contorted. I had no time to dwell on my thoughts. His right foot hit me hard in the stomach. Then in the back, followed by a loud crack. Had he broken the bones in my body? Or just my soul? The screams became wilder, more intense, even louder.

“You stupid cow. Do you hear me? I detest you, Katya!”

Something broke inside me. Like a crystal vase shattering on the floor, clattering into a thousand pieces. My name is not Katya, I thought. That is not MY name. Slowly a thought got hold of me. I am not even worthy of my name. Everything about me is worthless!

At some point his voice died away, the kicks stopped. Trembling I lay on the floor. In pain. Completely destroyed. In a pool of salty tears. I was dead. Inside. Erased. Vanished from the earth. In order for the feeling to arise, I decided at that moment to put an end to my worthless life. Soon, very soon.

1. The Voice

October 1999

The steel of the knife feels cold against my skin. My skin. Salty tears are running down the hot cheeks in wide streams. There have been too many over the years. Now it will finally be over. My wrists are waiting to be released. Everything inside me is waiting for death.

My gaze wanders out of the kitchen window. Dusk is setting in. Only six months ago the rape blossomed there in the field like every year in May. Yellow. Beautiful, bright, cheerful yellow. My soul no longer engages with nature. The wounds of the past are too deep. My stomach is churning. The tears wouldn’t stop. Cannot wash away the pain. There are no words for describing my agony. Guilt and shame have spread like hydrochloric acid inside me. Through my vein system. The little cells claw for each other like burnt tissue. My whole body aches. No longer can I endure being huddled in this cold eternal darkness. The loneliness that sucks the last life out of me. If there is a hell I am trapped in it. In my inner center, where it is only black and icy.

My look wanders to my forearms. The blade presses into the soft flesh. I no longer know a way out. The world is better off without me. My mother already knew that, that’s why she gave me away. Twice. How hard did I try, did everything the others expected. I felt their desires, saw their cravings and was always willing to give myself away. In exchange for love. My reward: abuse, imprisonment, beatings and kicks, deadly words that cut into my soul like razor blades. I don’t seem to deserve anything else. How could I, I am of bad blood.

Someone like me is unwanted, not taken seriously, ignored, deformed according to someone else’s wishes. Gets killed. The step to the washbasin is easy for me, the water pours out as I turn on the tap and seems to say: Come on, come on now, finish it. Do something properly for once.

The foggy water vapor rises like threatening clouds to the ceiling and anchors itself into the wood. In the hot whirlpool of water you don’t feel the pain when cutting your wrists. Once more I look at the field behind our garden, white and cold, hear the stream bubbling, feel the closing in of liberating death. Yet I want to keep on living. Without pain. Without sorrow. In peace. Within myself.

When he hit me, I let it happen without fighting back. Worthlessness is part of who I am. Drunk as he was, I couldn’t stop him anyway. Again and again his blows pounded on me. I hardly felt them. Not even when he pushed my body across the kitchen and I slid down the glass cabinet onto the floor. Would I survive? I wished for death. He kicked. Again and again. No, I didn’t deserve anything different. In the afternoon everything had still seemed fine. We had taken a long walk by the sea. We enjoyed the wide horizon and the raw freshness of the ocean’s roaring forces. The salty air of the North Sea. Why it then escalated in the evening, I can’t tell. It never took much. Out of a sudden I was on the ground and felt his kicks against my numbing body. He never remembered such episodes afterwards. Black out. Nothing there anymore. Soon I would no longer be there anymore, too. No one would remember me and that was good. His screams of sheer rage and hatred had pinched my soul. Let me slide into ever-increasing darkness. At the point my life had hit rock bottom the idea of committing suicide started to form. A dark word. Yet it would be a relief, wouldn’t it.

The sound of the pouring water takes me back. Through the veil of salty tears I sense the knife in my hand, feel the deathly coldness around me, and set to work. I can’t go on like this. A twitch runs through my body. An urge for being released from the agonies of life.

Go on, do it, it screams inside me.

I grip the knife tighter and feel the pressure on my skin. Yet before I can make the relieving cut a thought crosses my mind and floods my entire being. It doesn’t come out of myself, I know that for sure. A single word: Pray! Pray? Well, I’m not a believer. Not at all. Or am I? Don’t I believe in spirits? How does one pray? I don’t know. My words are forming a sentence and I just shout out: “God, if you really exist, help me now or I’ll kill myself!”

In a split second something urges me to throw away the knife. It flies in a high arc behind the kitchen cabinet. My arms are too short to catch it. The water is still pouring down. In the middle of my kitchen I am standing, maltreated, battered, hurt, broken, barely able to live and I think I’m even too stupid to kill myself.

November 1999

“Hello Esther, it’s me, Ursula.”

A former colleague tells me that her neighbor is looking for a new employee for the payroll.

“But I have a job in accounting”, I reply, feeling bored.

“I told her about you and she wants you so badly.”

She would not leave me alone.

“Okay, I’ll call her, but I don’t think it’ll work. I applied there in spring and they didn’t want me.”

Days later I am sitting opposite the same man as a few months ago.

“Do you know why we rejected you back then?”

Quietly I am shaking my head.

“You spoke badly about your former employer”, he states.

“You asked for the truth and I told you so.”

I am rummaging through my memories. What had I told them? Why did I want to change jobs? I don’t know, my brain doesn’t work properly. All these recurring panic attacks and fears that have accompanied me for years do not allow me to think straight. My nerves hurt being sore.

“You wanted an honest answer and I gave it to you”, I repeat.

The man opposite me seems to contemplate.

“Thank you for coming. We will call you.”

Back in the car, I first have to fight off a panic attack. I have to persuade myself to let my body relax.

Reassuring myself I mutter: “You can do this. Everything is okay. Keep going.”

I am breathing deeply and consciously. My heartbeat is slowly calming down, the sweat subsides and I am able to drive home.

“Hello, Mrs Vanguard, we would like to tell you that we have decided in your favor.”

The woman from HR takes me by surprise.

“Please come to the office on the first of December at half past eight in the morning so we can put everything in writing and you can then start immediately.”

I can’t believe it!

Life seems to be easy once you have advocates. However, I am wondering how this is supposed to work out? By now I am only a shadow of my former self. Being married to an alcoholic is anything but easy. And now a new job? How? My blood pressure drops. Dizziness overwhelms me again. I have to hold on tight. The omnivorous fear cramps my heart and lets my soul slip into darkness again, into depression, into that deep trauma hole. Beads of sweat appear like little crystalline balls on my forehead and under my nose. I have to lie down on the floor, feet straight up against the wall.

My circulation starts calming down. The cold tiled floor does me good. I am feeling at least something. What is to become of me? The doctors can’t find anything wrong. Their diagnosis: psychosomatic! My body is rebelling against past traumas and I have no idea how to survive life. How do I get out of this hurtful and traumatizing marriage? I love this man so much.

Or is it addiction? Codependency?

December 1999

What makes you believe that you are good enough to work here? You are much too stupid for that! You will never be able to succeed at anything. You can’t read or write properly, you’re ugly, stupid, a nothing, worthless. Nobody wants you.

I switch into action mode as I enter my new office for the first time. My smile seems genuine even though I feel dizzy. Well‑trained, my exterior looks different from what I’m like inside. No one recognizes my masquerade. No one realizes that only two months ago I had tried to kill myself. No one knows that my second husband is an alcoholic who beats me up and kicks me around. No one is aware that I have totally given up on myself and allowed that man to shape me to his liking. No one suspects that I am an unwanted child, that I had been adopted. My adoptive parents never made a secret of their opinion that my mother was nothing else but a prostitute and that I must have inherited those genes from her.

“Why do you want her, she’s a port whore”, my adoptive father had asked my husband-to-be.

It is my fault, I am the mistake. Have always been. What had I not done to attract their love? A lifetime of debt of gratitude. Enslaved to lick their wounds and conform to their desires. The actual me had been stunted, rejected and unrecognized. My creativity had been silenced.

“You can’t make money with art. You can’t write, you can’t read properly, you’re far too fat for ballet and the birds you draw look like elephants. Your singing is too loud and in the wrong tune.”

Those are but a few beliefs injected by my adoptive parents. Despite all this, I can feel a power of creation deep inside myself. But somewhere the black infinite hole is waiting for me. A place where the monster of pain, rejection and fear is lurking. There, in the solitude of darkness the treasure of my being lies buried. Lifeless. The place where my mother had rejected me. Twice.

October 2001

It was through my mother that I had found out who my father was and I decided to go to Berlin in order to find him. My biggest fear, to find him living on a park bench, proves to be wrong.

As my car turns into the street I catch sight of some detached houses. Well-kept. With fences and green lawns. My heart starts to race wildly.

What if he doesn’t want to see me? I think.

Through the bars of the iron gate I can see a beautiful garden. Handmade sculptures line up on the grounds. My index finger is trembling slightly as I am pressing the bell button. I can no longer feel my legs and the stomach is taking a rollercoaster ride. The front door opens and with a few steps a little man is at the gate.

“Yes, please, what can I do for you?”, he asks with a friendly smile.

There he is. My father. I recognize him immediately. I am his spitting image. His barely greyish full hair and his laugh lines make him appear warmhearted.

“Hello. Are you Michael Schneider?”, I ask.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Then I must be your daughter.”

It’s taking my counterpart a second to realize what is happening.

“Oh, how lovely, come in, come in. Are you alone?”

The gate opens with a squeak. I don’t know what I was expecting, but his reaction takes a load off my mind. Before me lies an enchanted garden, peppered with stories.

I wonder if he made these figures? it pops into my head for a moment.

When we reach the house, a blonde woman appears at the door. Her gaze is dark and threatening.

“I don’t like you showing up here at all”, she says to me in a harsh voice. The plastic wrapping of the flower bouquet I hold out to her rustles like an aspen forest. With a hasty “Thank you!” she makes room and my father invites me to enter his house with a loving gesture.

“Come in. Let’s go to the veranda, we can talk there.”

His wife hurries into another room, probably to throw away the flowers. I follow the man who is my knight on a white horse. Always has been. The one who would eventually save me from the traumas. An illusion. My fairy tale. Only better. At last I have reached my destination. While the steaming coffee pot sits on the round table, from which I am taking sips every now and then, I am looking around cautiously. He points to the oil paintings that colorfully decorate the veranda.

“I painted those. I’d be happy to show you the other rooms, too. My latest hobby is working with clay.”

That explains the statues in the garden.

“But my favorite thing is and always has been music.”

Only now do I see the various violins on the wall. There is an accordion in the corner. He reaches for it. The keys show heavy signs of use.

“He has even appeared on television with it”, his wife proudly interjects.

The melody catapults me to heavenly places. I close my eyes and feel whole. The artistic vein in me has its justification, it runs through my mind. The treasure deeply locked in the darkness of my being, calling incessantly “Let me out, let me out!”, has its origin. Creativity is my inheritance. From him.

“He also plays the piano. When our daughter was little, they used to play together. Melanie sat on his lap and learned from him”, the icy woman explains.

Her blue eyes flash at me gloomily. The blood seems to freeze in my veins. I feel a stabbing pain in my chest spreading throughout my body.

I should have been that daughter. I should have been allowed to play the piano with him, to throw myself happily into his arms, I cry to myself.

My heart hurts, the wound is deep and the scab that has held all the pain together over the decades is tearing open. Thick, dark red blood trickles into my black hole of a soul. I am feeling sick. Everything in me is longing for those moments never lived. A shrill ringing breaks through my thoughts. I hear his wife talking on the phone: “Yes, she is here. No, I don’t want that. Do you really want to come?”

Everything else is lost in a whisper.

“That was Melanie”, she says when she re-enters the room.

My father looks up from his accordion.

“She doesn’t want to meet you”, she states and makes clear that I will not get to know my half-sister.

“When I met your mother”, my father is struggling for words, “I wanted to marry her. We were engaged, you know.”

I can sense that he feels uneasy talking about it.

“A friend told me that I wasn’t probably her only lover and I hired a private detective. He confirmed the rumors and I broke off the engagement. Then I didn’t hear from her again for another four years when I was contacted because of the paternity test. Before that I had never seen you. Do you have a memory of that day?”

I am shaking my head.

“Once the couple you had been placed with since birth adopted you I paid four years of back child support. That was it.”

He turns silent.

I feel like an empty wallet. Reduced to alimony payments.

“Would you like some more coffee?”, his wife asks.

“No, thank you”, I can hear myself replying hollowly.

“Let’s go through the house, I want to show you my pictures.”

We take a walk through the rooms where Melanie is allowed to enjoy every second with her father.

“I think I have to leave now”, I say after having looked at his art. My body hurts. I can’t stand being here anymore.

“There’s one more thing you should know.”

He looks anxious and is whispering.

“We are of gypsy blood.”

He seems to be ashamed but I am happy. Finally, roots. I feel anchored, grounded.

We still have so much time, I think, and I will probably meet my half-sister one day.

How wrong I am. Those three hours would become the only ones I’d ever have spent with him. He will never open the door to me again. Nor will I ever meet my half-sister. He is going to reject me. For a second time.

May 2002

“Maybe you should finally give your life to Jesus?”1

I am staring questioningly at my colleague.

My life is still resembling a cracked mirror. Fragments that can never be put back together. Ten thousand scattered pieces.

“I believe that all your demon experiences won’t allow you peace and tranquility.”

She is right about that. I talk to spirits, have earned the second degree in Reiki, scry my future and let cards speak to me. My life seems more hopeless and darker than ever before!

My marriage is at its end, my soul destroyed, and my physical situation catastrophic. Should there be a God? Really? And would He help me?

Hours later I fold my hands, kneeling in front of my bed. How can I find my way to God? My heart is galloping like a herd of mustangs across the prairie of my terrors. My husband in the living room is unaware of all this. We are now living in a weekend marriage and he is visiting. Despair and loneliness are my constant companions. The black something in the depth of my soul is waiting to eat me up. Slowly, but surely.

I try to sort my thoughts. Through the slanted attic window I can see the light of the setting sun.

My lips are forming the words: “God, I want …”

That’s as far as I get.

A loud voice interrupts mid-sentence.

“Go, and preach my word!”

Everything inside me sinks down like a burnt log. I feel like I’m going crazy. On top of all the panic attacks and unexplainable physical breakdowns I am hearing voices now. Fear is taking hold of my heart with an iron grip.

They’ll take me to the lunatic asylum, it flashes through my mind. My heartbeat is racing. The herd of mustangs is galloping across the fields towards a hillside. No, no, it can’t be. Am I turning mad? Sweat is pouring out of my pores. I feel hot and cold at the same time.

A second attempt: “God, I want …”

And again I cannot finish: … to give you my life.

Clearly and distinctly I can hear: “Go, and preach my word!”

My heart seems to be jumping out of my chest. What am I doing wrong? Tears are coming up in my eyes. I want to make one last attempt. The stories about missionaries I had listened to from countless tapes make me hope that somewhere there is a God who means me well. That’s the only reason I’m sitting here in this little room, hoping my husband wouldn’t come in, and that something will change my life.

It takes all my courage to make the third attempt: “God, I want …” – “Go, and preach my word!”

Why am I afraid that my husband will hear this voice in the living room? And am I doing something wrong? My hands are cramping until the knuckles are standing out white.

Uncertain, I murmur: “God, may I please preach your word?”2

In that second, the gates of heaven open. The ceiling seems to have disappeared. With the sun so bright I have to blink. An inexplicable peace settles on and around me like a woolly cloak. Freedom pervades my thoughts and I wish to dwell in this healing presence forever. The small bedroom has turned into the safest place in the world. Something or someone seems to be here, I feel a presence protecting me.

The fear has disappeared and I am alive. Not surviving, but living. There is something much bigger than me. A peace that is not of this world.3

Just as quickly as it happened it ends. I am standing up, smoothing out my blouse and step out of the room. My husband sitting on the sofa is oblivious to all this.

2. Images and Visions

April 2003

My colleague had recommended Ingeborg to me.

“She’s a great prayer leader, I’m sure she’ll explain everything to you in detail.”

The large detached house is only a few kilometers away from my flat.

“Would you like to pray?”

She takes a look at me over the rim of her gold-colored glasses. Her grey eyes give me hope. There is a special peace in the living room. I sense that there must be a lot of praying going on here.

“Yes, with pleasure”, I say folding my hands in prayer.

“Can we pray that you will reach out to God?”

“No, I can’t do that”, I reply, “How could I trust someone I can’t see?”

“I understand that. Then how about us asking Him to reach out to you instead?”

“Yes, that sounds good.”

“Father God, I know that you love Esther. I ask you to show her how much you do. Reach out to her and let her get to find you. Amen.”

She looks at me knowingly.

“Everything will be fine. He will show Himself to you. Believe me. Would you like to go to church with me on Sunday?”

I feel queasy. Would I become a believer now? One of those weird Christians? My former neighbors were like that. How often had they told me about their free church? Probably a sect. I never wanted to get into something like that.

“Thank you very much, I’ll have to think about that. I’ll get back to you.”

Saying that I stand up, grab my jacket and leave.

I am jittery, my nerves feel tense like power cables. Slightly dizzy, I feel my thoughts racing through my mind in thick streams. I am afraid. Afraid of making mistakes, afraid of getting into something wrong, afraid of people, afraid of new things, afraid of fear.

My steps are slightly wobbly. It’s far too much for me; it is all too hard to grasp: God is supposed to be my father? Jesus has died on the cross for me? Asking for forgiveness? A Holy Spirit as God’s managing representative here on earth? Really? Who is supposed to free me of all evil? I feel drained.

My hand is trembling slightly as I’m putting the key in my car door lock. Ingeborg is standing at the door and waving. What does she think of me? Have I done everything right? She seems so wise. As I start the engine I am breathing a sigh of relief. Slowly I am rolling down the driveway, then turn the corner. And keep breathing. I feel empty, have a slight headache.

My nerves are tense and burning. As so often when it all gets too much for me.

I listen to the indicator as I am turning onto the main road. My little blue Fiesta is moving almost automatically. The road is nearly empty. I can hear the engine humming. And then I feel it. Him. My car is no longer moving in this world. It is about to become the place of my first tangible encounter with joyfulness. A feeling of joy of life and freedom is overwhelming me. Filling my car, filling me. Penetrating every pore of my being. Like a firework of colors and senses my body is transported into a state of deep delight. I feel like rejoicing. All blackness in me has disappeared. Flashes of lightning are piercing me. Pure pure joy. I want to live, in fullness, in freedom. I am bubbling over. Want to dance, sing, spin, and throw my arms in the air. What I am experiencing right now is exactly what I have always longed for. A second later, it’s all over. The engine noise takes me back to the present.

What was that? I am left with an insipid feeling. Why did it, did He, leave again? Now I am left with even more questions than before. Was that God? Jesus? The Holy Spirit? Never before had I felt better than in those seconds. Joy instead of depression. Happiness instead of tears. Freedom instead of fear.

August 2003

My stomach is turning, my head even more so. I can’t walk alone, I hook onto her. I want to get out of here. What am I doing here? My thoughts are racing. ‘Free church’ Ingeborg had called it. The memory of the experience in the car keeps me going. She opens the glass door and I am startled. Two pairs of eyes I know only too well are looking at me.

“Esther, how nice that you are here. What a pleasure to see you.”

My former neighbors are gesticulating wildly with their arms before greeting me effusively.

How could you sink so low? I think.

“Ingeborg has invited me”, I am saying through clenched teeth.

I look at her seeking for help.

“Let’s go in, take a seat”, she says pushing me into the worship hall. It looks gloomy. Some light falls in through three small windows. Some hundred chairs are set up tightly packed in rows. I sit down in the second row. People come and first shake Ingeborg’s hand, then greet me. She seems to be very popular. I am crammed in by Christians to my left and right, cannot escape. In front of me is a small stage. With guitars and a piano. And a drum kit. It all looks very different to what I would expect to see in a church. Is this a sect? The music starts. Songs I have never heard before, praising God, praising Jesus. The people next to me jump up, raise their hands, and stretch them towards heaven. What am I doing here? Where have I got to? I feel dizzy. I don’t raise my arms. The music fades and I see a small male figure walking towards the stage.

“That’s our pastor”, my companion whispers into my ear.

“Hello, dear congregation. I am to bring you greetings from Brazil.”

His suit fits immaculately. The color of his tie underlines the blue of his eyes. They are sparkling.

“When I left four weeks ago, I had no idea that Jesus had an adventure planned for me.”

He strikes me as a successful businessman.

“I met the second head of government of Brazil and he invited me to dinner. Afterwards we went to a private airfield.”

A skilled storyteller, I think.

“My childhood dream came true that day. A military helicopter was waiting for us and I spent the next hour in the cockpit of the machine flying over Brazil.”

The crowd applauds.

“God knows our deepest dreams and fulfils them when we walk in his ways. Psalm 37; 3+4 speaks of this: ‘Rejoice in the Lord, and He will give you what you desire with your heart. Commit your life to the Lord and trust in Him, He will make it right.’”

My thoughts are wandering whilst trying to put what I have just heard in line with my life. Miracles, wishes, paths. Deep in my soul, soundless words are forming: God, if you really exist, the skill that man has, I want to have, too. I want to become a storyteller and tell of your miracles.4I don’t want to sit in a pew, I want to travel around the world.

“I’d like to introduce you to someone.” Ingeborg snaps me out of my inner prayer. “These are Magdalene and Hans, the pastors of this parish. This is Esther.”

The grey-haired couple shakes my hand in a friendly manner. “Let’s have a coffee together in the cafeteria, it’s easier to talk there.”

“Tell me, how did you get here?”, Hans inquires politely.

I look up from the coffee cup. The room is crowded. The hustle and bustle of people and loud laughter make it almost impossible for me to concentrate.

“Ingeborg gave me a lift today.”

“Would you like to come and talk to us? Maybe we can help you on your way?”

So we make a first appointment.

September 2003

The small living room feels cosy and has a calming effect on my racing heart. Magdalene and Hans look at me kindly. I wonder if it is a mistake that I am here. I don’t know them at all. I don’t yet know what all this has to do with me. Can I trust?

A flashback takes me to when I had made that mistake of trusting my gynecologist fifteen years ago.

“There is something wrong with you. The problems with your abdomen seem to be psychosomatic. I want you to seek other help.” So, he had given me an address and phone number. A short time later I was sitting in a sterile psychotherapist’s office.

Excited and afraid, I was telling the psychotherapist what my adoptive mother had done to me over all those years.

“I hate her! She never leaves room at her side for me. She keeps telling me how great she is, what she is achieving. I just can’t take it anymore. Like I’m not there at all. Worthless. Useless.”

In talking like this I had felt like a traitor.

“Do you understand what I mean?”

My counterpart had smiled.

“Yes, I understand that very well. I know her.”

Back then, the floor had slipped right from under my chair. I was pushed back into my black hole. Treason! I had betrayed my adoptive mother. My head kept spinning and my stomach had screamed for the toilet bowl. What if the therapist would call my adoptive mother? What if she told her about my hatred? My trust had been betrayed.

I had never booked a second appointment.

“A strange thing happened to me yesterday. I had an image inside myself.”

The two of them are looking at me knowingly.

“I saw a long hallway. Wooden floor. There were seven doors leading from this long corridor. Old, big, heavy wooden doors. Brass handles to push down.

I was invited to open them and enter the rooms. I was afraid to do so. Can we do that together today?”

“The Holy Spirit sometimes sends images or visions of something He wants to work with. It seems like that is God’s language, that’s how He speaks to you. Have you experienced something like that before?”, asks Hans.

“I’m into esoteric matters. Reiki, supernatural phenomena, scrying and that sort of thing. Can sense spirits when they are there.”

The two are nodding.

“The kingdom of God is about walking in His ways and not getting involved with darkness. How are you doing with all these esoteric things?”

“Not well. But I’m trying everything to get better.”

“If there is a God, there is also an adversary, and that is the devil. He does everything to confuse people, to lie to them, to kill them. He is evil manifested. There is nothing good about or in him. He kills.”

Hans looks at me seriously. I think of the black, deep hole inside me.

“If you are involved in these esoteric things, then you are allowing the devil to torment you. Have you already given your life to Jesus?”

“Yes, at my house.”

“Fine. Then it’s your turn, if you like, of course, to apologize for all the other things that aren’t right in God’s eyes. Are you ready to see what’s waiting for you?”

Magdalene straightens her back and puts her hand reassuringly on my shoulder. Drops of sweat are penetrating my purple jumper. I am dressed far too warm.

“Yes, I am.” I am afraid.

“Lord, I now ask you to guide Esther. Allow her to enter the first room and show her what you have planned for her today.”

The scene that starts appearing before my eyes seems real. The Holy Spirit transports me back into the hallway. Slowly I am moving forward. Light is falling through the large windows. My left hand grasps the brass doorknob and pushes down. It is difficult to open. Slowly I am pulling the door open and look around. A ghastly grimace awaits me. Diabolical. Saliva and blood drip onto the floor from flattening teeth. A black tongue is running over bulging lips with a smacking sound. Its yellowish, insane eyes are fixed on its hand. A claw. A huge death claw. Gnarled. With long scrawny fingers it is clutching a person. Me. I am standing in the doorway and cannot move.

“What do you see?” Hans breaks the silence.

“Death. Monster. Disgusting. It wants to eat me. It’s cutting off my air. I can’t escape.”

My voice is loud. Mucus is running out of the mouth of the creature in front of me. It opens its throat. Wide. Wants to devour me. I see myself hanging in its death grip. Lifeless. Don’t know what to do. Symbols appear on the wall behind. Like tattoos, they are burning through the wallpaper and become visible. I recognize them.

“I see Reiki signs.” I am gasping. “The same ones that were painted above me when I was ordained.”

“You have been consecrated to a dead man”, Hans replies calmly. His voice feels good. “The Reiki blessing is a consecration of the dead and has nothing to do with Jesus. You have opened the door to the underworld with it.”

I can’t take my eyes off the symbols.

“Are you ready to part with it and ask God’s forgiveness for it? Then we can close the door?”

I know intuitively that it is the only right way to get out of this death embrace.

“If you want to repeat after me? Father God, I have gone down a dark path.”

“Father God, I have gone down a dark path.”

“I am sorry for that. I ask for your forgiveness.”

Word by word I repeat. Should it really be that simple?

“Come and wash me clean with the blood of Jesus from all the symbols of consecration to death.”

Again, I repeat word by word.

I hear Magdalene and Hans praying in a strange language5 of which I don’t understand a word. I don’t care. The image before my eyes changes. The monster is writhing as if under a huge electric shock and slowly opening its embrace. I see my face regaining color. The monster is screaming. Roaring. Steam seems to come out of it. The claw opens and I drop to the floor. I am freed. With a loud bang the beast bursts. Slime blurs the signs until they are gone. I see myself standing up. Breathing. Alive. Everything dead has been blown away from the room. I close the door and look at the couple in disbelief.

3. Disappointments

March 2005

“No, no. Help! I can’t go on”, I am crying out.

Desperately I am trying to crawl up the hill. My feet keep sinking into the black soil. I know I have to beat it. Must go up, must go over. Behind it lies the land of promise. I can see a great stage. The platform of my new life. Only, I can’t manage to step onto it. My toes claw into the sticky ground. Why am I barefoot? My white nightgown has traces of clay and blood. My hands are full of clods of soil. The higher I am getting, the deeper I keep sinking into the ground. Sweat covers my forehead. I feel it running down my back in rivulets. Mobilizing the last of my strength I reach for a ledge in the ground. The stone comes loose and I am rolling downhill like a Christmas ball dropping off a tree. I wake up with a dull thud. A nightmare. Again. Dreams of mountains, hills, things standing in my way have been assaulting me for days. With a deep breath I am laying down again.

My thoughts are circling around that mountain. No matter how hard I try, I don’t manage to climb it. Restless, I fall asleep again.

April 2005

In the morning I feel exhausted. Just as if I had really climbed a huge mountain. The coffee machine is humming a fragrant prayer when the doorbell shrills.

“Hello Ingeborg, glad you could come!”

She hands me a bouquet of tulips.

“Thank you, that’s sweet of you.” And again, I’m nervous.

It’s the first time she’s visiting me. Is everything clean? In the right place? Will the coffee taste good? Should I have baked a cake?

“A very nice place you have here.”

Her gaze is wandering through the colorful living room.

“You are very creative. Did you paint the pictures yourself?”

She points to a large example of imaginative work.

“I love working with natural materials and intense colors. It is not quite finished yet. The painting symbolizes the river of life. The painful things that are washed away by it.”

Old leaves and small logs seem to float away with the blue.

“Would you like to see the flat first before we sit down?”

“Yes, with pleasure.”

“In the basement are the bedroom and a small extra room.”

We go down the narrow spiral staircase. In front of the oak chest Ingeborg stops abruptly.

“What is this chest and what is in it?”

She is looking at me seriously.

“Oh, that. I got it from my adoptive parents for my confirmation. Handmade. There, look.” I am pointing to the front. “My name and birth dates are carved on there. My trousseau was supposed to go in there, but I use it for mementos.”

I want to continue. Ingeborg puts her hand on my arm.

“Stop! What’s that in there?”

I am confused. She’s always seeing things. Or feeling?5 I don’t quite understand, but I admire her for that. My own intuition, my gut feeling, has always seemed to deceive me. I don’t trust myself.

“Just stuff.”

I effortlessly open the box to the view of two seemingly distant lives.

“These are photos, mementos, my wedding dress from my second marriage, my veil from my first marriage. CDs and letters.”

I close the lid. It’s over, finally. But the burden is deep. Locked up, deeply anchored in my soul.

“I …” She is tightening her grip on my arm.

“What you see here is like a mountain in your life”, she says.

I am freezing. The dream.

“It will keep standing in your way if you don’t say goodbye to it.”

Her gaze wanders to the chest.

“You are not your past, God has made everything new.6 But you have to let go so that healing can happen.”

I sense that she is right. Suddenly she turns around and strides back up the spiral staircase. I am standing in front of the wooden chest indecisively. I feel like I’m in the deep black hole of my life. Buried in the cellar. Letting go, is that the solution?

When the steaming coffee and the biscuits are on the table I tell her about the dreams.

“The mountain is your chest. All the pain, the hurt, the wrong ways you have taken. God will heal all that, but it would be good if you apologized to God for the things you have done wrong.”7

The second door?!

“Lord, I ask your forgiveness for not having followed your ways for so long. I was driven by fear, worry and rejection and not by your love. I come before your throne today, surrendering to you all the painful memories of my life. My childhood, my first and second marriages. All that I have done wrong, all that has been done to me. I ask you to heal me. Amen!”

The process of forgiveness in my life is just about to begin.

May 2005

There is no chair left in the room. The pastor who leads this seminar comes from Holland. He teaches about inner healing, which looks different for everyone. I am watching the scenes eagerly.

“Now you have seen what different effects prayer can have.”

With this he seems to conclude his remarks about the inner healing path.

How I would love to receive prayer from that man. The three women with whom he had demonstrated God’s power all seemed deeply touched. He looks around.

“We still have time, does anyone else spontaneously want to …”

I raise my arm.

“Yes, me!”, I shout, jumping up.

“Fine, we have a volunteer.”

A smile flits across his tanned face.

“What’s your name?” The microphone shoots towards my mouth.

“Esther.”

My tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth. My heart is racing.

“This is beautiful, we have a female angel here.”

My tears start running.

The crowd is clapping. He lovingly takes me in his arms. How am I supposed to bear this now? The audience disappears before my eyes. All I can see is Him.

“What do you want prayer for tonight?”

I hadn’t thought about that.

“I want to finally feel God’s love.”

“So be it”, with which he takes both my hands in his.

“God, I thank you for your daughter Esther. You know her heart, everything in her life, and I ask you today to fill her with your fatherly love.”

I notice a slight tremor and open my eyes. He is crying.

“What a terrible pain you carry in your heart”, he states hoarsely.

Teardrops are running down his cheeks and as he gets down on his knees he is pulling me onto the floor with him.

“What deep distress.”

We are crying. Both of us. Lovingly he is holding me and I feel something black creeping out of my soul. Slowly the lift filled with painful goods is riding up my body and disappearing into nowhere. Something else, something white, is gliding into me as a counterpole. Gently, comfortingly, tenderly and sweetly. Like a feather slowly floating towards earth, the barely perceptible love of God seems to flow into me.

“I brought a guitar player”, I hear him whispering.

“He’s going to play you a song now.”

Still we are kneeling on the floor, still he is holding me. Calmly and gently. I am listening to wonderful music praising God’s love and acceptance, telling of adoption into God’s heart.

Disappointed, I am steering my car along the dark road towards home.

“God, if this is all your love for me, I don’t know if I can go on. This small, gentle, quiet feeling of happiness has disillusioned me deeply”, I vent out my disappointment loudly.

“I had thought it would be powerful, bang, exploding, smashing me. Healing. Somehow. But no, you stroke so gently, it’s barely noticeable.”

Tears are streaming down my face. I am filled with sadness.

Then I hear a quiet voice inside me: “If I were to flood you with all my love right now, you couldn’t cope with it. You are far too broken to be able to bear it. You would die.”

How am I supposed to put up with this “barely”? Isn’t it supposed to hurt so I could truly feel it?

“Lord, I need more of you, so much more”, I cry out.

Through the tears in my eyes I see something glaring. Flashing. I look in the rear-view mirror. Some distance away, there seems to be a fire. Fire, flames, yellow, red, glaring. The color is changing and turning white. White, with orange flames. Suddenly I recognize it. Angels. Millions of celestial beings with their wings on fire. I wipe the tears from my eyes. Like a huge protective wall, they seem to accompany me.

“God, this is tremendous”, I murmur, overwhelmed.

“I can’t even count them, there are too many.”

“You shouldn’t count them. For every person you tell about me, there is an angel behind you ready to go to them to deliver my message and save their lives”, I hear Him say lovingly.

June 2005

The smell of gasoline hurts my nose as Jan, a friend from the community, pours out the canister onto the memorabilia. The sheath dress with the rose pattern lies petrol-soaked in my hand. I had worn it to my second wedding when I fancied myself a happy future. After the ceremony, I had felt like a little yellow canary that had lost its voice. Watched the small white barred door of the cage close. I had gotten trapped in an unholy marriage. And it had been my fault.

Now this witness of time becomes a conflagration. The lighter gasps and the lambent flame brings forth a vast sea of flames. I throw the dress onto the piled mountain. Souvenirs of my old being. With a mighty roar, the fire takes possession of each piece. They are writhing in the heat. Trying to escape. The wood of the oak chest is turning black, starting to burn. The old photos are bending. Like an embryo writhing back from the womb when it can no longer bear the rejection and hatred through the amniotic membrane towards itself.

“What a pity, that good piece of wood”, I hear Jan say.

I don’t care about that thing. Never again will it stand in my way. Ingeborg sings a song of praise. Despite the drizzle, the pile is burning like a torch. After three hours only a watery black burnt mass is left.

The stage of life is clear now. The mountain is levelled. The nightmares have stopped.

May 2006

The flames in the fireplace burn only for a few seconds. The letter that came by post from Berlin today had catapulted me back into the past. The sender: my mother.

One further step in the forgiveness process.

“I thank you, Lord, for my mother. Thank you that she gave birth to me. I forgive her for giving me away, twice. For never taking care of me.”

My voice sounds hollow and hoarse. Seven people are standing around the open fireplace, gazing at the suffocating flames that engulf the devastating words.

“I forgive her for accusing me of ruining her life.”

Do I really forgive her?

“Say it out loud. The feeling will come afterwards”, Ingeborg explains to me.

She prays.

“We break all the curses, curses and bad words on Esther’s life. They have no more power, neither in the visible nor in the invisible world”, I hear Ingeborg saying.

“With the sword of the spirit we separate Esther from her mother. Hate and rejection no longer have a place in her.”

The prayer circle that evening is the right place for burying all that. To burn it. Emptiness is spreading through me. The paper disappears before my eyes.

“We fill all the empty places with you now, Holy Spirit.”

“Finally, you have given everything to God. You have forgiven. Get up and move on!”

I still feel it. This pain. Its power on me. And I have no idea what to do about it.

“It is about the truth that is in the Bible and what Jesus says about you. That’s what you have to trust in. Not what your feelings are telling you.”

If only it was that simple. Father God, I can’t take anymore, it’s flooding my thoughts. Forgiving two mothers is far too difficult this evening.

My heart feels like a lump of ice as the memory hits me.

“You are good for nothing”, I hear my adoptive mother’s frantic voice screaming.

The wooden cane flies towards me at high speed.

“You’re too stupid for doing anything properly. Didn’t I tell you not to get your dress dirty?”

And the next blow hits me in the back. I try to protect myself with my small hands between stick and body, but I can’t manage. Again and again it strikes me.

“Look at your shoes, full of dust.”

Zack. The next blow rams unerringly onto my back. I try to break free of her iron grip. I don’t succeed.

“You little beast, you just don’t listen when I am talking to you.”

Another hit. Today it wouldn’t stop at all.

“No, please, please don’t”, I am crying out in despair.

“I want to be nice, please, Mummy, don’t hit me. I promise you, I’ll never go to the playground again. I am being nice. Please, please, stop!”

She doesn’t seem to hear me. It hurts so much. She drags me down the steep basement stairs. I know this room. The tiles I have to sit on are cold, like in a grave. The darkness doesn’t allow for recognizing anything. There is no window in the room, no light bulb is on. Time stands still. I hold on tightly to the metal shelf. It is solid. Built in. It’s standing firm and secure. I know its color – green – even though I cannot see it now. I feel the hours going by. My friend, the shelf, is keeping me alive.

Seems to whisper to me:

“Just wait, it will soon be over. Then you can get out of this hole again. I am with you, I am holding you. Think of green meadows, bright colors. Smelling the wind, feeling it on your skin. Walking, running, playing. I am with you.”

My back feels deformed into a crooked something. I try sitting on my shoes, it is so cold here. Fear has a grip on me. Rejection conquers my child soul. What have I done this time? It must have been something bad or she wouldn’t lock me in the basement again. There is no way out here. Everything is sealed off. My limbs are aching.

The scene in front of me changes.

“You’re really too stupid for everything. Do you want me to hammer the letters into you?”

The heavy reading book beats on my head.

“Didn’t I tell you how to put words together? Do you ever listen to me?”

With a dull bang, the book hits my head a second time. Harder. Again and again it keeps coming down. My head and neck seem to be connected only by a loose thread by now.

“How stupid can you be? You must read. Read, read, read! Why can’t you do anything right at all?”

With my arms I’m trying to ward off her attacks, but it’s hopeless. She is right. Letters are strange symbols to me. Words are only meant to hurt, striking wounds as deep as the universe. My tears are soaking the couch.

“Please, please, don’t hit me. I want to read, I’m trying. I really am.”

My voice breaks into sobs.

Back in the cellar of my childhood, I am glad that my shelf is there. Over the years it has become my best friend. It comforts and accompanies me in the black hole of punishment. Never ever did it tell me that I couldn’t do anything, am worth nothing or wouldn’t be able to achieve anything.

“Oh soul, are you weary and troubled”, I can hear my friends singing from afar. “No light in the darkness you see. There’s light for a look at the Savior and life more abundant and free.”

Yes, light in the darkness, that is what I need. Light and truth.8 The burnt paper rises one last time and swirls in the draught of the chimney flue. Burnt, extinguished, but not forgotten.

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look fully into His wonderful

face …”a

4. God’s Fatherly Love

March 2007

“I have another impression of the Holy Spirit for you. Would you like to hear it?”

The one meter ninety tall detective is looking down at me. His blue eyes light up as he lovingly asks the question.

“Yes, I’d love to”, I answer, beaming with joy.

I am hungry. Hungry for Jesus and for all that he has in store for me. The detective is part of a team of eight who have held a weekend seminar on God’s love for the Father. The worship room is now only occupied by a few as the seminar is over. I only know him from the introductions on Friday. The well-trained, dark-haired policeman stretches himself.

“On behalf of all the men in the world, I want to apologize to you for what they have done to you.”

In an instant, I am breaking down. How does he know this? I sense the Holy Spirit in his words, revelations from the heavenly world. I can feel that he means it sincerely.

“Can you forgive me? Them?”

Like a huge dam, the floodgates of my heart open. The waters pour into the dry valleys of my soul. The team keeps waiting. I cry and cry. Can’t stop.

Cry out to Jesus: “Yes, yes, I forgive them, I forgive them. All of them. I forgive!”

Like stones being dragged along in the water stream of the floods, the injuries anchor themselves in the salty water. They are carried along, washed out, washed away.

The criminologist silently takes me in his arms. After an hour, the river runs dry. His shirt is soaking wet. I look up with swollen, red-rimmed eyes.

“Are you okay? Can we leave you alone?” Love again.

“Yes, yes”, I am sobbing, “I’m fine now.”

Which is also kind of true. No one has ever apologized to me before. Especially not a man, and certainly not someone in a position of authority. God himself had apologized for the bad things people had done to me.

I feel empty, light. All power seems to have left me, but I can feel a different energy. A heavenly one.

“How nice that we were allowed to get to know you”, the group leader says lovingly.

“It is a gift that you can forgive so quickly. It is a gift from above! Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, but releasing an offender from their own condemnation, handing them over to God’s justice. Now you can move on. The burden is gone.”

I enjoy the freedom that is taking up a whole new space in me.

July 2007

“I can’t go on, Hans. I just can’t anymore!”

Tears are rolling down onto my blue jumper.

“I feel turned from the outside in. Want to look forward and no longer back to my past.”

I am sitting in the living room of the pastoral couple who has been helping me work through my life story for months.

“I feel turned from right to left and from left to right. From the outside to the inside and vice versa. I’m howling and shouting, forgiving and moving on. It’s enough.”

I find it difficult to express my feelings.

“But you’re not ready yet”, I hear him reply. “There is still so much to do.”

The seriousness in his voice makes me doubt. Is he right? Am I wrong again?

“That may well be, but I can’t go on like that.”

A last cry for help comes pressed from my throat. His wife puts her hand on his arm.

“Let her be. If that’s her impression, then it’ll be okay.”

I look up. He nods.

“Then let’s do a final prayer.”

His voice expresses displeasure.

“Jesus Christ, we ask you today for your guidance. You have heard Esther’s wish. Only you know what pain is still in her, what still needs to be cleaned up.”

I swallow dryly.

“Take her by your hand, lead and guide her on her