My Cross For His Glory - UBM [David Eells]

I have not had a normal life. As a kid, I had a strong attraction to God from the time I was first told of Him. Of course, I was a kid and played and got into trouble like any other kid, but I had a strong belief and leaning toward God, always speaking of Him to my friends. I always comforted my crying friends, speaking to them of the Lord. That was just my way. This began when I was about 7. I was baptized at 13 and received the Holy Spirit at 15, and at the time I was also witnessing to kids in school of the Lord.

Back in the early 1970s, when I was married for only a few short years, my husband began to abuse me in an unusual way. He would throw bibles at me and say I was absolutely no good in the Lord, a failure. He would do this to me when I refused to get drunk because of my walk with the Lord. He would do this whenever I refused to do or say anything that was not of God, saying I was to be under subjection to him, and that a disobedient wife was displeasing to the Lord. I was miserable. So I wanted a divorce. As soon as, and whenever I said the word divorce, bibles were thrown at me, and I was being banged against walls, and at times have wine forced down my throat. I was in utter misery.

Then one afternoon while taking a nap, I had a vision of me awakening to the sound of crying in my basement. I went down to see what was going on, and I saw myself in chains, chained to the basement wall, crying out to God, "Deliver me, help me, why don't you hear me?" And then I heard footsteps behind me, and I saw a man dressed in white, with white hair, crying blood tears, and then sit down on one of the steps. And I was angry, and I said to the man, "Why don't you help her?" (She was me but I said her.) He continued to cry, blood coming down his face, and shaking his head, and saying, "I'm sorry. I can't. YOU must do this". And he walked back up the stairs, crying, I yelled out, "Lord, help, help!" And I awoke. As soon as I awoke, I knew the meaning of it. The Lord was telling me that He could not break His word about marriage. (Marriage cannot be annulled except if the unbelieving depart or they are not content to dwell with you according to 1 Cor.7:13,15. The Lord was saying that she would have to go through this trial like Job and Joseph and like what James 1 speaks.) At the time I thought that my hand would have to do it, and that it would not be easy. And every time I tried to break my abusive marriage, I got more abused, and taunted by my husband, and I was growing steadily weaker. And as I got weaker, my inner eye started to shut towards the Lord, and I was struggling to keep it open.

Unable to break this abusive marriage, I was beginning to feel that the Lord was never with me in the first place. After all, would a loving, kind God whom I knew since early childhood, and through my teens, allow me to live such a life? I felt like Joseph who was sold into slavery, by my mother who had arranged this marriage for me when I was only 16 going on 17. I had no say in the matter. And would MY God deliver me into such a predicament? (He does in order to manifest himself in us. {2Co.1:9} yea, we ourselves have had the sentence of death within ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead: {10} who delivered us out of so great a death, and will deliver: on whom we have set our hope that he will also still deliver us. ...{4:7} But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves; {8} [we are] pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not unto despair; {9} pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not destroyed; {10} always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body. {11} For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.)

Then I had a dream of me in a dead forest. Everything in it was dead. The trees were so dead, so brittle that even a thick branch broke and crackled in my hand when I held it. And I fell to the ground crying to God again, "Help me. Oh Lord God, help me. You are far from me. I am in the land of the dead. Hear me Lord". And then I heard the snarling of an animal. When I looked up, I saw about 5 or 6 wolves. The lead wolf had slime and spit dripping from his mouth, ravenous, hungry, showing all of his teeth. I stood up and faced him, all the while crying, "Oh God, where are you? The wolves are after me!" And then the first wolf jumped at me but I caught it by its throat and slammed it against a tree, crying, "Oh my Lord, where are you?" And the second one jumped at me, and I grabbed its neck and broke it in my hands, hearing its bones snap, all the while crying still, "Oh God, where are you?" And the next wolf: I ripped its head off. And one after the other they attacked me and I either broke their necks or slammed their bodies against the trees, until they were all dead. Then I fell to the ground, and saw their blood on my clothes and hands. (Demons beware) I said, "Oh God, you are with me or else I couldn't have killed the wolves, but why don't you answer? Why?" (So she could learn to fight and learn to die to self.)

And then I had another dream where invisible hands were slapping me, punching me, throwing me against walls, all the while hearing a hammer pound, as though something was being made or built. These invisible hands then put me before my bedroom mirror and I saw myself full of blood, black eyes, purple bruises and lumps and bumps on my forehead, and my mouth and nose swollen and bloody from their beatings on me. Then these hands lifted me, and I saw the shadow of a cross on my wall and I screamed, "God, where are you?!" I was screaming and kicking, fighting to get off of the cross. (Jesus told us that unless we lose our life we will not gain our life.)

I had been a singer at the time but being weakened by the stresses and anxieties of my life, I had quit singing for a time. Until one day while being in the public library a woman approached me. She called me by name and smiled, and said she had wondered what happened to me. She missed my singing in the church. I just gave a brief explanation of too many stresses at the moment. So then she said, "Can you make a tape? I'd be satisfied with that". My husband, who heard of this went directly to a man he knew who was building a recording studio. I didn't like that man too well. And again without my consent, a contract was made for me to work with that man against my will. That man made the process of putting songs together absolutely miserable. Many were the times I went home in tears, only to be downgraded by my husband for not loving the Lord enough to complete the contract. I loved the Lord immensely, but the fight and struggle surely couldn't put a good work together, could it? I told the Lord it was HIS work, HIS message, He would have to see that it came out as HE wanted it. And I was inspired to write a poem called Broken Chains, reflecting the dream I had before of me in chains, writing it as a prophecy to be fulfilled. When my husband read the poem, he put it to music and it was made into a song. In fact, I took the opportunity to say what I wanted to say in song on behalf of the Lord. But alas... I was browbeaten by both my husband and the man I worked with. The other man would degrade me and say, "Learn to sing! You can't sing! Is this how you sing for God? Get the notes right!" Etc., etc. Here I was trying to bring praise to God, uplift His name, and I had to work with a man who did nothing but criticize me, downgrade me, mock God, mock singing in the Spirit to God. He didn't care at all for God, he just wanted me to be the selling product to get more customers for his studio and so he drove me harder and harder.

Now during all of this time I was having dreams of me battling Satan with my sight taken from me and with an angel behind me that kept watch. Each time I had to sense the direction where his slaps and hits would come from, block his attempts to hit me, and nab him by the throat and pin him against a wall. And one I had where I was sleeping, but was awakened by the voices of two men. I lied still in bed pretending I was asleep and heard the one voice of the man I call my angel say, "Leave her be, now. You are not winning". And the other voice said, "No, I was given my time with her and I intend to use it". But my angel said, "She still praises God, even so. She is writing praises unto Him, even now". But the other voice said, "No. I have much planned for her yet".

"Give it up. It's pointless" said my angel. The other voice said, "No!"

Well THAT made me mad and I hopped from bed and stood between the angel and Satan and said, "Satan, I will ALWAYS praise God". And I started singing in his face the praises of God and he screamed and ran. My angel laughed, like a deep belly laugh, yelling after Satan, "And yet you still try". Then during a church meeting I went up for prayer and a word of prophecy came for me, again saying there had been a battle for my soul, but the Lord prevailed.

Well nothing came of the songs in the sense that I completed the whole album and it was sold. The Lord brought a move to my life, leaving the city for the countryside and putting much distance between me and that slave driver man of the studio. But people who took copies of the songs completed asked for permission to make copies and send them to family members. Being they were not sellable as they were I gave my permission and I found out that those songs have been through many states, including Canada, England and Australia. I never made one red cent on those songs, yet I've heard much good feedback from people and they've gone to quite a distance just by the hand of the Lord.

During my time in the country I spent a lot of time praying outside and studying nature and always learning something from nature that seemed to explain things of the Lord. My husband stopped all of his abuse on me and has instead given me freedom to be me, giving free reign and control over anything that is his, and never questioning me on anything. (PTL! He was overcoming because she gave up her life.)

And years later in another dream/vision, I awoke to the sound of a man hollering and screaming in my hallway. It was Satan. He was throwing a tantrum, shouting up to God, "Give her up! Give her up! Why do you hold on to her? She fails still. She fails. Why do you hold on to her?" And he was just kicking up a tantrum. I turned away, thanking God for ignoring him and standing by my side, and I went back to sleep. And while I write this, I am reminded of the scripture, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the 'shadow' of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me". (Amen!)

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