A testimony
My turbulent life story began with a dramatic situation in our family. It led to the early breakdown of my parents’ marriage. I took away from this event a great wound of rejection and loneliness. Not having a normal home, I envied those who had one.
Helplessness and growing anger in me led me to the world of youth subcultures. There, together with others who had experienced life like me, we learned contempt for the world and its authorities. For me, primary school became a time of listening to hard music, drinking alcohol and experimenting with drugs. I quickly became the object of attention from teachers and parents who warned others against any contact with me. It was very sad, but of course understandable. . .
I looked in the wrong place
Diversions were not bringing me the expected satisfaction, and life was becoming more and more burdensome to me. Soon I and my previous group mates didn’t understand each other. I began to look for a solution in sorcery and occultism, from which I expected to have extraordinary powers. But instead, I was filled with fear and darkness. The abundant promises of the New Age movement were also unable to provide an answer to my inner anxiety and the sadness of my heart. Successive gurus and Far Eastern meditation practices only trapped me in my strangeness. . .
As a teenager, I had neither prospects nor the will to live. Thanks to stimulants, I escaped from everyday life with its usual problems into illusory worlds. I was also incapable of building friendships. I entered into casual contacts that left me with only a feeling of shame.
Fascinated by God
When nothing showed the possibility of change, something strange happened: when I was meditating one afternoon, the image of the Virgin Mary appeared before my eyes, and vivid memories of Marian songs I had heard in the past began to come to me.
At that time, I left my hometown to study. Among my new friends, I met a boy who, as a Catholic, was not ashamed of his faith. I was intrigued by his normality and kindness. Through them, God slowly penetrated my heart. Openness and friendship with this person brought me closer to God and the Church. I began to seek out Christian mystics and read their works. My prejudices diminished, and I increasingly desired a living experience of God.
The grace received in confession works
The turning point for me was an unplanned confession, which I made after a sincere conversation with a monk. The light of truth then entered my soul, opening a new stage in my life: a time of childhood joy, but also effort and struggle. I broke off sinful relationships and threw away occult accessories (records, books, images, etc.) because I knew it was impossible to serve two masters. I began to get to know God in prayer, sacramental life and involvement in the activities of the charismatic community. Unfortunately, the devastation that the evil spirit wrought in me through the sins of many years of idolatry made itself felt through harassment and physical ailments. Only after years of persistent personal and community prayer, and thanks to the help of priests, bad thoughts and blasphemies left my head and my heart regained trust and simplicity.
The Lord organised my interior and healed it with His grace so that I could live consciously, making wise and free choices. God allowed me to complete two fields of study and marry a wonderful woman, thanks to whom I keep discovering Him in my life anew. Every day I experience various states, I still have to pick myself up, but I cannot imagine life without God. Whatever happens, I know that He loved me as a sinner, and neither doubts, nor inner darkness, nor sad external events can separate me from Him.
Thomas
