The Moment God Took My Hand & Changed My Life
It was Wednesday, January 6, 2021, I was upset about watching Congress elect Biden. I knew the election was fraudulent and fully expected good people in Congress to send the electors back to the States to take another look at the integrity of the election results. After the ridiculousness ensued with the “insurrection” and people being let into the Capitol, I felt it was over. Feeling like the good people wouldn’t stand and fight and that evening watching television, my fears came to fruition.
Sitting on the couch with my husband, I was overcome with fear and disappointment and out of my mouth came, “well maybe we should all just die, maybe I should kill myself”. It hit me like a ton of bricks, what I said and would never mean, but I felt a deep pain that I couldn’t shake. I just knew that this wasn’t God’s plan for this nation and gave into the feelings that the enemy was winning.
My husband always stays up late at night, but he randomly went to bed early around 10pm. I stayed on the couch and said that I was going to turn on a Hallmark movie to attempt to make me feel better. I turn on Hallmark but immediately fall asleep. I’ve always been someone that can fall asleep at any time and usually do when I lay my head on a pillow, but this was a very deep sleep. And then it happened.
Hold up a second, before we can move forward, I must explain my entire life in a brief nutshell so that you will fully understand how dramatically my life changed in an instant.
THINKING I KNEW JESUS
Born and raised in small-town Kansas, I was baptized in Trinity Lutheran Church and attended multiple Lutheran churches through college. Growing up I heard the same Bible stories over and over, year after year and knew that Jesus died for my sins. There is a plethora of important heavenly revelations that were never taught or preached about at any of my churches. I won’t get into all of that here, but you can read ‘Important Things Church Religion Didn’t Teach Me’ for more details.
I believed in God, that Jesus was his son that lived a sinless life on earth, died for my sins on the cross, overcame death and ascended to the right hand of God. It was just that, a belief I held. I prayed a simple prayer each night before bed and before family dinners, but didn’t really give God any more thoughts or additional prayers.
LIFE WITH FEAR & ANXIETY
Fear and anxiety were a part of everyday life for as long as I can remember. I had separation anxiety as a toddler leaving my parents. I was successful in most things I did, including sports, but fear of failure and anxiety was always there. After every 400-meter race in high school, I would vomit because of the intense anxiety prior to the race. I was always a perfectionist that caused more unnecessary anxiety.
On athletic scholarship in college, I had a career-ending injury that came with a bunch of medical drama which of course only meant more anxiety and lack of trust in the medical community. It got so bad that as an adult, I’d get anxiety just going to the grocery store and having conversation with friends, because I would be anxious about what to say, what they would think and after the experience, my anxiety was still high because of the fear of what other people thought of me and what I had said.
I trusted no one. I had wonderful friends my entire life, but I moved multiple times as a kid and therefore never really got attached to anyone. Relationships had never gone well, and I even explained to my boyfriend that eventually became my husband that I would likely never completely trust him. Not trusting people was part of who I was, and he needed to understand that. It was more of a don’t trust anyone attitude, then you can never really be let down when things don’t work out.
HEALTH TRAUMA
A year after I moved to Tallahassee, Florida to be with my future husband, I had a pain in my stomach that initially appeared to the doctor to be a ruptured appendix, but the surgeon said I didn’t appear like a person with that problem. However, I underwent what was supposed to be a short non-invasive emergency surgery to remove my appendix at 9pm and woke to additional scars, much more pain and a boyfriend that was told by the anesthesiologist while I was in surgery, “Amy’s body isn’t like others, it is going to take a bit longer.” Still to this day baffled by that statement.
And after signing documents to allow the surgeon to tell my boyfriend details of the surgery, I waited with no knowledge for the busy surgeon until 6pm the following evening to come and tell me what had happened, because of course, nurses can’t tell you anything. My surgeon started by telling me, “I removed a tumor,” he paused, “or tumor-like mass as well as twenty-four inches of your colon and small intestine.” I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and think you can see where this event and diagnosis lead to further anxiety. For more details, you can read more on this story in ‘The Positive Impact of a Life Changing Drama’.
WORK STRESS TO PANIC ATTACKS
Somehow, I felt fully functional with constant anxiety and again was successful in every job I took. I was promoted on a regular basis. Looking back now, I can see God’s hand upon my entire life, well the portion I can remember anyway [yet another story].
I was the marketing manager for a company that ran multiple businesses in the same field and was making every decision that had dramatically increased the revenue as well as the bottom line. I no longer held meetings with other staff, just sent out emails on what to change, because I knew the data of the business and could foresee what needed to be changed. It hadn’t been an easy road to get there because other staff had been doing the same things for 25 years, but industry and society were more rapidly changing and once they saw my continued positive results, they just listened.
My boss at the time manipulated his way into the role of President and manipulated everyone, each day to keep his perceived control. He once came to my office to ask what I was working on, so I told him the data charts I was creating to solve the problem I was looking into and what I thought would be the fix. He immediately went back to his office with that information, wrote an email to the management staff and told them what needed to be done as if he knew the issue existed in the first place and knew how to fix it. After I completed my data analysis, turns out what I had told him wasn’t how we should proceed, so I replied to all with the data-supported changes to be made to which everyone agreed with me. I didn’t intentionally give him bad info; he caught me mid-analysis and asked my opinion. This man had the nerve to come in my office and in his embarrassed anger, berate me for changing what I had previously told him and therefore making him look incompetent. Working in this environment added to my daily stress and anxiety tremendously.
Then our largest competitor attempted to whittle their twenty competitors in Florida (of which I ran three) down to only five through government processes that in my opinion should be illegal. My company could only submit one bid, and I brought in a lobbying firm to assist us, again talking everyone into believing this was the best option. I wrote the entire bid solicitation and determined the price at which we would submit after determining the owner’s primary goals for the combined Florida businesses and showing them the only way to achieve those goals. Other people had opinions, but not strong enough to take the weight on their shoulders, so my ideas were the only ones that got submitted.
During this time, I felt like I couldn’t breathe on a regular basis for more than a month. I would work from home some, because people thought I had a virus or something. Still, never had problems sleeping, probably sleeping more than ever before. I remember thinking it is strange that I can sleep just fine, but the moment I woke up, I couldn’t breathe. One weekend, I even ended up in the emergency room, because I literally couldn’t breathe and thought I was going to pass out. My husband drove me there, hospital staff of course, pumped anxiety meds into me and returned later to ask if I was better, to which I replied, “NO!”. No drug was going to stop the fear, anxiety and pressure I felt to save the core business of the company I was basically running.
GOD FIRST STEPPED IN
Nature was always a peaceful retreat for me, so my husband and I traveled to Naples, Florida hoping for some relief and relaxation. My anxiety increased as I got further away from hospitals thinking I would stop breathing with nowhere to go. We drove out to a wildlife refuge where I could take photos and when we first started walking around a red-shouldered hawk landed just to the left of the trail right in front of us. I frantically began taking photos of this blessing that only God could drop right in front of me, then had a wonderful walk through the refuge for hours capturing photos of butterflies, birds and the surrounding beauty of the swamp.
Something suddenly clicked in my brain, and I realized that I had been breathing fine the entire walk through the wildlife refuge.
People often don’t understand how someone can experience a panic attack and do not know that you are having one or how to control it. I had no previous experience with panic attacks so I couldn’t really grasp the concept, and being consumed with fear and anxiety my entire life was completely normal.
Once I understood what was going on, I was able to calm myself when I felt a panic attack coming and incredibly grateful to God that He instilled that ability inside me.
After panic attacks began, I started having issues where my glands would swell in my neck when I ate almost anything. Tested negative for food allergies, though they don’t test for all the additives and bad things in our food that we consume. But the fear of my throat closing would again cause anxiety and panic attacks, but over time I learned to overcome those as well.
My life was a revolving door of fear, anxiety and panic attacks.
YOU ARE FIRED
In 2019, I was working as the Chief Operations Officer of a non-profit mentoring agency with yet another manipulative person as my boss. And after the previous work environment, this one went to entirely different levels of insanity. I found my tolerance of work-induced stress to be approximately three to three and a half years maximum before I had to act and change something.
This boss also let me run the entire agency and never wanted to know what was going on as long as she looked good to the board of directors and the public, since she was also an elected official. Well, turns out standing up for your moral beliefs and being honest with someone can and will get you fired. To that person if she ever reads this, thank you! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for firing me and giving me the time and opportunity to find a new relationship with God that forever made my life better, happier and more fulfilling than I ever thought possible.
Funny that the man tv-famous for the words “you’re fired”, Donald Trump, was President of the United States when I got fired. You’ll understand this random statement a bit later.
After being fired, I was determined to never have a boss again, so I started my own business Change N Focus, which initially started as a travel company. The good Lord had other plans, because in 2020 Covid came along and stopped all travel.
COVID let’s just say was a life-changing trauma for the entire world. Thankfully with my horrible track record with the medical industry, there was no way I was getting vaccinated or ever tested for Covid. The trauma from Covid for me was brought on by the heightened fear that everyone seemed to be living in the unknown.
Thankfully at the same time I was taking a good look at my life, what I had become and through that self-reflection started down a new path toward a more positive mindset. A book that opened my eyes to a lot of things was Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani. The book didn’t center around any one belief system or religion, but it connected me back to a deeper journey to truly find God and as it says in JEREMIAH 29:13, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”. My heart was set on the Lord.
I worked through forgiveness for everyone that I could think of that I perceived had wronged me or caused my anxiety. I worked through how my perception of life and what I let my mind focus on, likely caused much of my fear and anxiety.
I began watching Spirit-filled Christian leaders on YouTube. Learning so many things about my Heavenly Father, Jesus and especially, the Holy Spirit, which to me had been much of the missing piece from my childhood in church.
I chose to give my life to the Lord, studied his Word and prayed daily and had asked the Holy Spirit to fill, teach and guide my journey.
JEREMIAH 29:13, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”.
The following account leaves out my opinion on what I saw, but it wasn’t a regular dream like I had dreamed thousands of times. It was truly an experience that felt like reality that I could feel in every part of my being.
EXPERIENCED GOD’S PRESENCE
So, when I made those statements about ending my life on January 6th, 2021, they seemed so out of place. As I fell into a deep sleep that night, a figure walked into my dream with a rectangular device and I was told, “hold this and you’ll be taken in the air”. I was certain that I did not know how to work this thing, but was told “you will know”. Then I was told that I would see Donald Trump and thought, I don't know what to say, and again told, "you will know".
When I say that I was told or heard things, in this experience it was a knowing inside of me, not actual speech.
As I grabbed hold and began ascending, I heard ‘Air Force One’ and ‘Donald Trump will see a great light’. I never saw Air Force One but saw Donald Trump and out of my mouth came a booming deep voice that said, “Donald Trump this is God speaking through Amy” and then God continued communicating with Trump but not in a language I could understand.
I then saw Donald Trump’s body covered in what I would describe as brownish mud or clay. His body appeared to get mangled up and I knew or felt inside me that Donald Trump had been filled with the Spirit of God.
That scene faded and then I found myself sitting in a chair looking at nine people, five on one side and four on the other and heard “Supreme Court”. I did not hear any names or see any faces that I would recognize, but all nine people had the same clay cover and mangle their bodies and again, I knew that they had all been filled with the Spirit of God. In that same room were other beings, I couldn’t describe now what they looked like, but the entire room began a dance party, celebrating and rejoicing that they had been filled with the Spirit of the Lord.
Still in my chair, I saw an out-stretched hand and when I took hold of that hand, I was told, “YOU ARE NOW DIFFERENT.”
“YOU ARE NOW DIFFERENT.” Life-changing words that I will never forget.
Then even I began dancing in my chair celebrating with the others.
As that scene faded, I felt like I was descending from where I was and the next thing I remember is feeling or hearing a deep gasp or breath come back into my body. My eyes had not yet opened, but I could start to feel my body again and my limbs felt mangled together and could feel that I had been holding on tight to something. I remember thinking, ‘I’m glad my husband isn’t out here to see my body all mangled together’.
When I woke to see my living room, I felt the most loving and peaceful calm that one can only imagine in this life on earth. Not an anxious thought or fear could even exist in that moment of pure bliss. I even danced a bit as I lay there wide awake. Finally, out of my mouth, I said aloud, “One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all”. I paused thinking, why in the world would I say that.
As the indescribable peace faded, I got up from the couch and went to bed. As I lay there, I felt something ‘working’ over my intestines and I knew that God was healing my Crohn’s disease or whatever had been wrong with my intestines.
FOREVER CHANGED
God not only took my hand and changed my world that night, He healed my body and filled me with his Spirit which always leads me to 2 CORINTHIANS 3:16-18 ‘But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.’
My new life that I have lived since that night has been one with no fear or anxiety. Now, let me be clear, I’m not saying that negative, anxious or fearful thoughts never come to mind; they do, but those thoughts are quickly overcome by the Holy Spirit that lives inside me and thankful and grateful thoughts fill that space.
‘But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.’ 2 Corinthians 3:16-18
Though I often have thoughts of ‘why me Lord’, ‘why was I so blessed to be set free’, and what God always says is, “I want that for all of my children”. Looking back, I now see God’s hand upon each moment of my life and can see why I went through certain things at certain times and the lessons that God needed me to learn.
All of this is why I share my testimony with you and will continue to write about my life with the Lord, to bring hope to others who currently live a life consumed with fear, anxiety and panic attacks.
FINAL THOUGHTS
What I would like you to take with you today, is this…
You and your life are one of a kind. You are unconditionally loved by your Eternal Father in heaven. Put your hope and trust in the Lord and seek Him with your whole heart. I promise that when you do, you will find Him and He will be overjoyed to pour His love and glory upon you.
Trust that God’s timing is perfect and His plan for you is unique. Your experience will not be like mine, but I assure you, that what God has in store for you is a beautiful journey that only He can provide and only if you give your free will and life to the Lord.
As to Donald Trump and the Supreme Court being filled with the Spirit of God, I do not know if it happened as I saw it, had already happened or will happen in the future. What I do know is that God’s hand is upon Donald Trump and until God shows me otherwise, I believe that Donald Trump will fulfill God’s plan for this great nation that will once again be one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
‘One Nation Under God, Indivisible with Liberty and Justice for All’.
God Bless You & God Bless America!
