By Melinda Tan
Walking in the dark spiritual realm for 20 years was the most painful and darkest season of my life. I can’t imagine where I would have ended up if I didn’t meet Jesus. The journey was tough and torturous but through Christ, I am now lifted up in victory. All glory to Jesus!
I came to know God through my colleague. I was obliged to attend a Christian gathering as she was constantly telling me about the love and peace of God, which I didn’t believe. After that gathering I had my first encounter with God. Jesus appeared to me in a dream. He walked towards me in a very bright light and embraced me with his love. The feeling was indescribable; it was awesome and the love, peace and joy could not be expressed in words. That moment, I knew Jesus was so real!
However, I still rejected Him. I did not accept Him because of my Taoist family background. I believe God knew my destiny and that He wanted to save me from falling into the pit before me, but my ignorance led me into darkness and destruction — which I could have never imagined — later in my life.
Immersed in the occult
In my early twenties, I used to gather with friends after work at a Taoist Chinese temple at a cemetery. Being young and adventurous, I loved to talk about ghosts and the discipleship of deities. After some time, I began to have nightmares. A few of my friends were demonised but I was still okay. One day, as usual, I offered joss sticks at all the altars of the temple. Suddenly I had the sensation of being electrocuted all over my body. I was shocked, not knowing where the feeling came from, so I quickly moved away from the eerie deities.
One evening, I was alone in the temple as my friends had gone to buy dinner when I saw an old lady dressed in a Chinese “Amah blouse” floating between the long lalang at the cemetery. She was walking along the short and narrow road leading to the temple and carrying a black umbrella. Suddenly, I was distracted by a loud noise and turned my head away from the old lady. When I turned back, she had disappeared. Later, I checked with the temple medium. He told me she was his “sifu” and the founder of the temple. He pulled me to a photo of a lady at the ancestral altar. I could recognize her face and the blouse she was wearing. I was terrified.
Out of fear of seeing ghosts I asked the medium for the cause. He told me that the lady ghost wanted to bless me with a 4-digit number. That very night, in my dream, a number was presented to me on a banner in silver, black and gold by a man in an ancient black costume riding on a black cloud. I bought the number and indeed, it was a winner. I gave some of the winnings to the temple without knowing that my journey into the darkness had begun. My life began to change after this incident. I was led by an evil spirit, had intuition over 4D and became addicted to it.
Later I was demonised by all kinds of demons. Manifestations took place very often, especially when I was angry or upset. I couldn’t sleep at night. If I ever fell asleep the demons would come to torment and oppress me. Once I almost died from suffocation when the deities I prayed to fought among themselves in the spiritual realm. They operate by hierarchy. As I was sensitive to evil spirits, this journey was tough, scary and painful.
Knowing that I was being possessed by demons, I sought healing. I went into self-meditation and began to go from one temple to another – Taoist, Buddhist, Tibetan and Thai. This worsened the situation as more demons came into me until I was so deep in the occult and eventually went into a trance. As a result, I was unable to work. I felt very depressed and hopeless and even had suicidal thoughts.
A transformative encounter with God
By God’s grace, He did not abandon me. He made a way for me when there seemed no way. I visited my dying nephew, who was a Christian, in hospital. There, I had my second encounter with God. As a non-believer, I didn’t know why I cried out to Jesus in desperation to save my nephew. He was in a coma. I kept on talking to him beside his ear because his ear drum had been damaged during the cancer treatment. I said, “Boy, hold onto Jesus’ hand and don’t let go; you mustn’t let go … must follow Jesus.”
After a while, my nephew suddenly woke up from his coma. His face was shining and he bid us farewell with a strong voice. He said “I am leaving now” three times. The grief in my heart suddenly turned to joy. I did not understand why. Where did it come from? I kept telling myself that I must be crazy and heartless, feeling joyful at the death of my nephew. Was I in my right mind?
Being a non-believer, I was curious and wanted to find out why, therefore I decided to accept Jesus on the very day my nephew passed away. After praying the sinner’s prayer, God visited me very often in dreams and taught me many things. He is so real in my life. God’s tsunami touched my whole household — 12 of us accepted Jesus at the same time and all were baptised three months later.
Battling for deliverance and freedom
In the process of healing during the first three months as a baby Christian I still had some manifestations when being prayed over. The church arranged for me to go through the whole process of cleansing and deliverance by confession, repentance and renunciation, cutting off all ungodly soul ties with deities. I attended a church deliverance retreat for two nights at Peacehaven. During the retreat God showed me in a dream that I would be healed in three months. I received prayer for the baptism of the Holy Spirit (speaking in tongues). From then on, I began practising speaking in tongues.
Deliverance was difficult in the beginning. I had to endure all kinds of manifestations. When I prayed in tongues, the “fake tongue” (from previous Thai chanting) would begin to surface, putting fear and confusion in me. I continued to press on no matter what I encountered. It was a tough fight and finally I had my breakthrough through endurance with God’s power.
At night, I also could not sleep well; my bed shook. I was so restless and tired. The more I challenged the demons, the more intense pressure I received. Then I received this wisdom from God: rest in God, fix my eyes on Him and ignore the situation. As I resisted the demons, they gradually fled. And as I studied more of God’s words daily the manifestations became less and less. And true enough, exactly three months later I was totally healed! I had my water baptism at this time.
On the day of my baptism, during worship, as we sang the song “I will follow you Jesus” I had a vision of a very big snake fleeing upwards into the sky, screaming “Run, they are going for water baptism”. That night, as I was about to sleep I saw a vision of a tiny light right in front of me. As it approached nearer and nearer it turned it into a flower. And as it got nearer to my face, it turned into a birthday cake with one candle – I could see it clearly: just one candle. A birthday cake from God for baptism – “born again”. I didn’t understand the meaning of the birthday cake at that time as I was a baby Christian.
All these years, it had been my heart’s desire to find the true God. One morning as I was reading the new beginner’s Christian booklet I found this verse – “You will find me as you meditate upon My words.” Wow! So easy, I thought. So I put it into practice. I experienced God’s presence, so bright with great peace and joy. After this encounter, I could compare it with the past meditation I had with the fake gods (deities). It was totally different. In that process I was sucked with great fear into a dark tunnel, whilst in the presence of the true God, I am surrounded by a bright light, peace and joy. I am grateful, because having experienced the kingdom of darkness, I understand the power of the kingdom of light.
By God’s divine arrangement, I attended Raphah School of Prayer Counselling in 2019. Initially I only signed up for Module 1. The teaching was very profound and interesting and inspired me to pursue Module 2. The sessions taught issues and roots; touching on sins and sickness; healing for the inner person; generational iniquity; the spirit realm and the occult – its dangers and consequences; evil spirits and deliverance; rejection and the mother root of all rejections. These were all so useful and practical in my daily life. I began to understand that who I am today is the result of what I went through in my childhood and the emotions received during critical and challenging times.
At Raphah Ministries I had my breakthrough in the area of “legal rights stolen by the enemy”. Using one of the kingdom keys learned – the key of confession, repentance, renunciation and cutting off ungodly spiritual ties – I claimed back my legal rights from the enemy.
Being a Christian all these years I still have a lot of questions in my mind not answered, especially with regard to the spiritual realm. I have had another breakthrough in the area of grief and loss. I lost my little brother during my childhood and had totally forgotten the grief I felt but it was still buried in my heart. With all the knowledge I learned from Raphah I began to connect my emotions back to my past experience and found the answers to my questions.
With a passion to help others, I have joined Raphah Ministries as a prayer counsellor, hoping now be a blessing to others and point them to the Saviour who rescued me and gave me new hope in life.
Melinda Tan attends the Banner of Love Church and serves in the Raphah Ministries. To learn more about the ministry, click here.
