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Jesus brought me back to life

Author: Testimony,
"Love One Another!" 37/2016

The doctors called my parents and told them that they should start preparing for my funeral. They didn’t give me any chance of survival. They said that if I did survive by some miracle, I would be a vegetable.

I experienced the resurrection in my life. I shouldn’t even be here now. I’m here thanks to a miracle. Everything began with the conversion of my mother, who had previously believed in birth psychomagic. She thought that this would be the way to “protect herself” from all evils. At the time, I was about six years old. Mum recanted, and the family joined a charismatic community. As a child, I had a variety of perceptions about this group. On the one hand, I complained “they’re taking over my house again”; I felt left out, because there were again more important things. On the other hand, I was happy that the doors to our house were not closed. It was a way for me to get to know a lot of different people.

Change of school — change of environment

When I was eight years old, we moved. My brother started music school, and I landed in the nearby grade school. It was a shocking experience for me. Prior to this, I had never been beaten, but here I found out that my classmates were being beaten by their parents, and girls in my class were being raped by their stepfathers. I didn’t understand that kind of world. I remember one girl’s provocative behaviour towards the priest during the catechism class. Now I know that they weren’t joking. That kind of behaviour illustrated what those kids were living through in their family homes.

My classmates listened mostly to “Polish disco” music. At the time, I was listening to punk. It was also a time when I met a classmate who “infected” me with another kind of music: techno. That was where my rebellion began. My parents weren’t happy about it. They threw my things out, tore the Satanist posters off the walls in my room and destroyed my cassettes. Today I’m grateful to them, but at the time their talks had no impact on me.

Narcotics

By the time I was thirteen I started smoking “ganja” (marijuana). I ran away from home, and two years later I disappeared from home for two months. I went to Jarocin. I was hanging out with some druggies who made their own concoction and injected themselves with it. I told my parents that I was out with the scouts. They could see what was happening with me, and it was very painful for them. I started selling drugs, mostly amphetamines, in huge quantities. Now, with the utmost awareness, I can say that the key which “opened” me to drugs and powerful sensations was music.

At that time, I was living from one party to another. Nothing mattered except my own pleasure. My time was divided into “before the party”, “during the party”, and “after the party”. Even though I was only sixteen, I was going to parties that were for people over twentyone. I was sucked into the world of DJs. Every party was followed by an after party, which was supposed to be only for the DJs, the VJs and the so-called “attendants”. I started becoming interested in “VJing”, everything involved in preparing the room for the party: the decorations, the scents and the harsh lighting. It was a source of money, fun and pleasure for me, but in fact I was wreaking havoc in people’s minds.

Sometimes, while the organisers were paying workers after the parties, I got a lot of various drugs. Whenever I scored a lot of them, I’d hand them out to my “good friends”. Today, I’d rather share the love of God with them.

The girls I hung out with were into magic and deeply involved in occultism. They “helped” me change my life with their magic. I remember when I had a serious court case with some friends, and suddenly it seemed that the paperwork had gone missing and the whole case was dismissed, because I had told my girlfriend about it …

Techno and “techie”

It was punk music that led me to techno music. One of the currents of tech music is “hard techno” — a heavy, anarchic version of techno. This music is quite simply demonic. “Techies” (hard techno parties) bring together people from the anarcho-punk environment, often wearing dreads, with so-called tunnels, and with piercings in various places on their bodies. These parties were apparently set up as venues for selling drugs. They would go on nonstop for three days.

I knelt before the Most Holy Sacrament and said: “Jesus, I can’t make sense of it all yet. Please make sense for me”

“Techies” take place in forests and fields. Their purpose is so-called spiritual integration, which is why as a rule they take place during a full moon (hence full moon parties). This scheduling isn’t accidental. The people who attend these parties are deeply connected to shamanism, Neopaganism (Wicca cult) and Satanism.

Business

At the age of sixteen, I started managing a bunch of businesses with a techno music producer. I would also attend the Love Parades in Berlin. In those days, techno music was closely associated with the gay movement, which led me to parties in gay clubs. Every two weeks, we organised fancy dress parties with the “rainbow brothers”, as I called them. The parties were techno, closed, with an 80s climate, and always heavily “decorated” with drugs.

Sometimes, while the organisers were paying workers after the parties, I got a lot of various drugs. Whenever I scored a lot of them, I’d hand them out to my “good friends”. Today, I’d rather share the love of God with them

For a time, I would dress in colourful fur trousers and a fur jacket and colour my hair in wild “rave” colours. I was bingeing (being high on drugs) non-stop throughout my high school years. I could take thirty hits of ecstasy at a party. Obviously, this took a toll on my psyche: due to overdoses, I landed in detox several times, and in the psychiatric ward a few times. In hospital, I learned to smoke cigarettes.

Death

Aside from music and drugs, I fortunately had one normal hobby: photography. It was my grandfather who had taught me about taking pictures.

Around seven years ago, something extraordinary happened to me. We were doing a photography session in 30s style in the transport museum. I wanted to have the last picture taken with me sitting on the windowsill with a view of the university. The windowsill was slippery, but I absolutely had to show off. I reached out with my hand and grabbed hold of the nearby power lines. Then I got my foot onto it as well, which closed the circuit, and 3500 volts coursed through my body. I felt a horrific burning and a sensation of falling. This brought on my death, but at the same time I saw Anne, my girlfriend, who was kneeling down and praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. I saw her right at the moment when I was lying on the rails that I had fallen onto on my spine from a height of almost six meters (19 feet). Even if by some miracle I had survived the electrical shock, my spine should have shattered from the fall. I saw Anne as if I were beside her, and not down below.

Finishing her chaplet, Anne saw the Railway Protection Service worker coming with an AED (automatic external defibrillator). That was the first time this guy had ever used an AED. Thanks to him, my heart started beating again, albeit in agony mode. He also called an ambulance, but it couldn’t arrive for forty minutes because the gate leading to the rails had been welded shut. Meanwhile, Anne had called my mother and told her: “Margaret, your son is dead”. Mum answered: “How can that be? Dear Lord, you are doing so much for him! It can’t all be just for him to die now!”

They took me to the hospital, where I was placed in a drug induced coma. The doctors called my parents and told them that they should start preparing for my funeral, so that they wouldn’t be have to worry about finding a place to bury me in the next couple of days. They didn’t give me any chance of survival. They said that if I did survive by some miracle, I would be a vegetable. The fight for my life had begun. There were many people fasting for me, and a number of priests said masses in my intention.

During the time that I was absent from this world, I had a completely extrasensory experience, beyond description in human terms. It was as though I had been blind from birth and could suddenly see, and someone asked me what it’s like to be able to see. During that week, I experienced a total love that I wasn’t ready for, because all my internal filth wouldn’t permit me to know it. I felt like a person who was dying of hunger and had a delicious cake in front of him, but couldn’t reach it because his arms were too short. That’s the only thing I can compare it to in human terms.

I went to thank my doctor, who was an agnostic, and he said: “Kid, this was a miracle! I am by principle an agnostic, but don’t thank me that you survived, thank God”

The miracle came after a week. My test results suddenly improved. The doctors decided to revive me from the coma. Ten days later, they discharged me from the hospital, even though they didn’t believe what had happened to me. It violated all the rules of physics and medicine. I went to thank my doctor, who was an agnostic, and he said: “Kid, this was a miracle! I am by principle an agnostic, but don’t thank me that you survived, thank God”.

The road to conversion

After leaving the hospital, I started to live in immense fear — a fear of impending death. This led me to go to confession, in fact to several confessions, to an exorcist. During the subsequent confession, the Lord freed me from smoking cigarettes. The struggle to free myself from drugs would be a much longer battle.

Prayer for the souls in purgatory is very helpful for me, along with the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Now I know I have many allies and true friends who support me. I know, too, that the grace of liberation is coming and that someday I will be completely free from this past, this dirt that I lived in for so many years. I’ve started to experience God’s gifts: joy, happiness and peace.

Before my conversion, looking at the space around me, I thought about how to change it in order to mess with peoples’ heads. For me, it was all about more sensations. Now all of that — the sounds, the touches, the smells, the ritual, the gestures and the images — I discover in the Eucharist.

Back then, I was looking for peace in my heart and turned to shamanism and Vedic spirituality, where they write about “ganja” as a gift to the earth from the demon Shiva. Now, when I struggle with the temptation to smoke “just one joint”, I pray the breviary or read the Bible. When the devil tells me that I’ve been on a “religion trip” for the past few years, I press the word of God against my chest and fall asleep with it.

Before my conversion, I had heard the teaching that God loves me, that I’m a sinner, and that I have to devote my life to Jesus explained a thousand times. But it didn’t mean anything to me. Afterwards, when God gave me a new life, I went to a retreat that my mother was leading. There, I knelt before the Most Holy Sacrament and said: “Jesus, I can’t make sense of it all yet. Please make sense for me.” That was the most important moment, when I really invited Him into my life.

I used to live in impurity. Now I enjoy a chaste relationship with my girlfriend, who prays for me a lot. I’m aware that I’m still on the road to recovery. I examine my conscience twice a day. The Eucharist and meditation — those are my ways of staying in touch with Jesus. I am also aware that the evil spirit set traps for me. He doesn’t want to steal my watch or my phone, he wants to steal my eternal life. But I know that “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13), and that the One who is within me is greater than the one who is in the world (cf. 1 John 4:4b).

Peter

Source: https://loamagazine.org/archive/2016/2016-37/jesus-brought-me-back-to-life

The article was published with the permission from "Love One Another!" in September 2020.

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