Episode 1 - Finding Faith: A Journey from New Age to Jesus

In this episode of The Soaking Ground, Ivet shares her transformative journey from a life filled with spiritual confusion and new age practices to finding peace and purpose through Jesus Christ. She recounts her struggles with trust, the impact of her brother's death, and her experiences with demonic attacks. Ivet's story is one of redemption, as she discovers the power of faith and the importance of family, ultimately leading her to close her New Age store and embrace a life centered around Christianity.

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"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death." - Revelation 12:11

Transcript

Tasha 

You're listening to the soaking ground, a podcast for spiritually dry and weary souls. Just as the rain soaks the earth, healing and recharging it, God wants to saturate the earth with testimony of salvation and life through Jesus, the source of living water.

Ivet 

My name is Ivet and I was raised as Catholic. I lived with my parents for the first six years of my life. When I was about six to twelve years, I lived with different relatives. I moved from being with my father's mother, which is my grandma, and a few of his sisters. So I moved around for those six years of my life, and sometime with my other grandma, which is my mom's side of the family.

 I feel my parents decided to do that because they were working here and so babysitting, I really don't know the reason. I really never asked why I was sent. So I was living in another country with family members. When I turned twelve I came back to be with mom. By this time my parents had gone through a divorce. I never questioned anything on why we were separated for so many years. But during that time that I was separated from them, I did go through some stuff like personal situations alone that I had to learn by myself to resolve at a young age. 

When I was away from my parents. I had struggles I couldn't tell or communicate to anybody because I didn't know who to go to as I would go through problems either school, with friends or any circumstance, I just didn't know who I could go to. at one point I was either seven or eight, I was walking by myself out on the street and there was a drunk man and he did try to grab me and started touching me. So he wanted to, you know, rape me. I was so little and I was able to fight this man. Either he was too drunk and I was able to like push him and then I was able to run. But I feel that since then it was the grace of God that, you know, he protected me and I was able to run away from this man and thank God he wasn't able to harm me at all. That situation I kept to myself and never shared with anybody for so many years. So nobody ever knew, not one person because I didn't know who I could tell and So that's how I grew up it was hard to trust people because I had not even a friend that I could trust

 As I come back when I was 12, I came back to mom and like I mentioned, my parents were divorced. I still didn't have a trust for anybody that I could talk to because we were separated for so many years and that connection wasn't there. And I do believe my parents didn't mean it in a bad way. They really trusted their family. you know, she's with family members. My parents, they're gonna take care of her. And it was just normal for grandparents to watch after grandchildren, you know, back in the day. So I really feel like my parents didn't know that, it was gonna be a hard situation for me. I didn't, hold that against them, you know. And when I came back, we reconnected, but it took a while to start trusting and just talking to my mom and letting her know that if I was going through any situation, but I still kept a lot of stuff that I would go through. And that's how I basically grew up, not sharing anything. Anytime I had problems at school or when I fell in love, I didn't share it, not even any happiness, nothing. I always kept that. I feel that that was very hard on me, keeping all of that in my heart. And then I got married very young. I was 16 when I got married.

 When I turned 17, my first daughter was born. So then I had to learn to be a mother. I was still in school and work. as you know, with a new marriage comes a lot of new hardships and, family situations, troubles, and all of that, I went through. Everything was always me trying to resolve on my own. And I always had a good husband that was very supportive and always trying to provide. But of course, even that like there were a lot of tough times. And he definitely made it clear that he was there for me to be like a good friend and all of that. But I always put this shield around me because it was hard to trust anybody. 

After being with my husband one of my little brothers, as he got older, started to be like a good friend of mine. And he would like look for me a lot and he would ask me, how I was. And he would share a lot of his personal information with me. So that allowed me to open up a little bit to someone and he will look for me to hang out and say, you know, we should go to the movies. And then at this time, he also had a girlfriend that he was living with and they were living in my house. So we hung out a little more, more often. Well, shortly after that, as I start trusting somebody and getting very close to like a family member, he got shot in the streets and passed. And I lost a best friend and my brother.

 It took a while to recover. And my whole family, we were all very torn for this loss, especially that when he died, he was only 17. And with that loss I just couldn't accept it. And I always wanted to just hear him again. You always think about, if I could hear him, if I could talk to him, if I see him again, it's hard to let go. I started having dreams with him that he would tell me that he was fine, that I shouldn't worry about it. I think that that just gave me more hunger of like, maybe I want to hear about him more. By that time I was 23. And I was already working full time.

 In one of my jobs, there was a lady that was a medium. And I never called her. I never asked her. I never said anything to her. But she approached me and started talking to me about my brother, the one that passed. And so she was giving me so much information about him. Like she was right on point with all the information that she was giving me about him. That got me so excited because I'm like, wow, I can still have this connection with my brother even though he passed and everything she's saying is so true. And it was that little hope that I had, you know, to, you know, just wanting to hear more about him or the place where he was that I wanted to know more and more. that got me very connected to this lady so that I can continue to ask her in different situations about my brother. that's how it started for me wanting to look for this type of information I didn't go out there looking for it. But in that type of job that I had, it was customer service. So a lot of customers that would come will have a conversation with me. Well, among those customers, there were a lot that were mediums, tarot readers, part of New Age. And a lot of them would start a conversation with me by saying, ⁓ like I saw you from further back there and you look very spiritual and you look like you're very gifted and you have such a great heart. So then you start believing that you're gifted, that you're spiritual, and even though wasn't understanding, but that kind of inside of me, I wanted to learn more about what they are telling me. And then, as I am, you know, like listening to these people, I think I started opening myself to, you know, like opening windows and allowing those type of things to come to me because I'm calling it without knowing. Like I wanna know more about my brother. I wanna know more about what they're saying that I am. they started talking to me about my aura and all new age information that I didn't know about. As I started getting interested in that, I started also dreams and visions. And to the point where there was this situation where I was told that I was so gifted that I was a healer. And I wanted to know how I was able to help others if I was able to do healing. But that took a while, so I left that alone And I just continued with my normal life.

 Life also brings you a lot of situations where you feel like hopeless and not having like I said that type of support. So I started looking for these friends and having a closer connection to them that weren't in New age and learning more about it. And so one of them told me that I could be a good healer if I was interested in doing Reiki. And I said, definitely, I do want to help others. So I took a class in Reiki. And that gave me a little more, if I can say empowerment, know, like, ⁓ like I have this energy, like I can do this for people. So what Reiki means, the person will lay down and you place your hands over them and supposedly you're picking up energy through your crown, taking it to your heart, releasing it through your hands. It is very heavy and not good for the one that's doing the Reiki. Because what you're doing is that you're releasing all of your energy to somebody else. So that's what, and so you're supposed to be healing somebody else. That's what Reiki means. And people that receive Reiki say that they feel like a very hot type of energy over their body. And that, that energy is what's providing them healing. That's what Reiki is.

 So, that happened, of course, like later, like years passed after my brother passed and that happened just later in my life. And then, You know, just not long ago, about like six years ago, I told my husband, I want to open a store. And the store is because I want to do Reiki and help others. And my husband didn't agree at the moment, but he said, ⁓ OK, you know, like, I don't really agree with that, but. I will support you just because he didn't want to have a disagreement with me. So we ended up opening a store back in 2019. I started doing my Reiki's and I added crystals to the store so I started getting more involved in the new age and of course started doing like selling tarot cards, Egyptian symbols and I just thought all of that played a role together and it was part for healing others. Or the crystals were like good luck for good energy and the crystals were just pretty to have at home. So that was another thing. You know, the crystals just looked pretty, I thought. Even though a lot of them were said to have a lot of energy. It's like, okay, but they're pretty. And I saw all of that as very innocent. However, as I get more involved in this new age, I also was awakening something inside of me.

 I started to have more visions than dreams, but a lot of visions was a lot of like demons and in my dreams I would get bullied. And also, it was like a fight that I started having with these other entities. I used to be fearful to go to bed, like to sleep because I knew that they would come at any time and just, you know, would bully me. I was not harmed at all, but it was scary because a lot of them, at some point, I would be taken to different dimensions. And that was scary. I was afraid that if I'm taken to other dimensions, I cannot come back. So I didn't wanna close my eyes and fall asleep. And I told my husband what I was fighting and my husband could sometimes hear me as I was being attacked because I was paralyzed, I couldn't speak. So he will have to like shake me around so that he can get me out of that state that I was in. And then I would come back and open my eyes and say, I just experienced this. And it was so scary. I lived like that for like a couple of years, you know, with that fear. And not knowing what to do? Like the crystals were not helping, because I would put a crystal next to my bed to avoid demons and it wouldn't help. any type of ritual I was doing, like saging the house, it wasn't helping. That wasn't stopping any type of demons, that's how life was. It was not pleasant. It was so bad.

 Anyway, we opened a store and I started doing that Reiki and selling those crystals and of course getting customers in. As customers would come in, a lot of them came sharing what they were going through and some of them would come asking for help, crying. Some of them were desperate. 

We had a lady that came in and she had a little girl. The girl was about three to four years old. To me, it's like a baby. And she came asking for help because her little girl was being bullied at night by a very strong demon. I was told that it was a very strong demon and the little girl would cry and scream for help at night and she couldn't sleep and she was always in a state of fear, never wanted to be alone. When she told me this, I was in shock because my mind couldn't understand. What has a little girl done to be bothered by a demon? I couldn't comprehend. And the only thing that you hear is like, you can sell this crystal because this crystal will help to keep that demon away. But then I remember that the crystal wasn't helping me. So the hope was like, okay, maybe it will work for her, or if I do a reiki on the little girl. The lady kept coming back several times saying it's not helping, but she kept trying different crystals. According to what she was understanding is if I try like a stronger crystal that may help, and nothing helped. And so I felt hopeless because I couldn't help. And I didn't know what else to say to this lady. And just to see them so desperate, you you cannot help your own children with what they're going through. It's very sad. So that was one story. 

A second story this lady came with a couple of girls and the lady came crying and she said that she was not only hurt by the whole family were experiencing demonic activity in their house and that to the point where stuff was being thrown at them and cabinet doors opened and closed. And she just knew that those were demons as well. And she didn't know what else to do. She did call some priests. That priest came, but they couldn't do anything and they left. Eventually, she did say they left like running afraid of that, that even the light bulbs broke as the priests were there. So it got worse and the priests left running and they never came back. So there was no hope in there. As she is telling her story, there was actually a pastor in my store. The pastor had come and he was just talking to me and my husband, having a conversation, but then he was around looking at the crystals. But as he hears this lady, he came back and approached us and said, now I know why I'm here. And he said, he told the lady, I can go help you get that demon out of your house in the name of Jesus Christ. But whoever owns that house, like if you own that house, it has to be you that sends those demons away. Because if I do it, and I can do this in the name of Jesus Christ, but if you don't do anything about it, they can come back. And so to me that was very interesting. However, because the lady had a bad experience with a priest, she just seemed hopeless and she left. And then she never came back. So that was another story that left me in shock because I had no idea that people were experiencing this really bad stuff, even though I was having a problem myself with that kind of activity by other entities, but it was still like others were experiencing a lot worse. And so, I continue to see more testimonies from these people in regards to demonic activity. 

We also had another lady that came in. And she really just came to talk to me. She didn't even want to look at the crystals or anything else. She approached me right away as she walked in the store and she says, I need your help. I need to know what to do because my husband has a picture of me and my daughter inside a fish tank and he leaves my house every day at 3 a.m. and I think that he's doing satanic rituals and that's why he's leaving my house every morning and it's just not his normal self. He really looks different, his eyes look different and I feel like I cannot move or do anything. I need help. At that point, I kind of sat back because here the problem is her husband. So I cannot even offer her a reiki. And I really felt in my heart that a crystal would be of no help in this situation. I said nothing to the lady because there was nothing that I could say. And I had no knowledge of another situation close to that story. So she left and that's another story that left me hopeless because I opened this place to help people and I haven't really helped anybody. When I was doing the reiki's, people would say to me, your energy is so different. I have tried Reiki's in other places and they're not as strong as yours. So I feel like yours is helping me a lot better. I do feel like a little bit better, but it wasn't doing complete healing. So I am thinking there is no point of this. Like I'm not really helping anybody.

There's another story that I need to share. There was a witch that came to my store as well. And she came looking for a crystal. And she's speaking out loud as she's like looking for this crystal and she shared that the crystal she's looking for is to protect herself because she was gonna do some type of vengeance or a ritual to a neighbor of hers because the neighbor was really mean to her. And thank God there was a friend in my store that was visiting and said to the witch, please don't do that. Do not forget that whatever we do can come back to us. And the witch said to her, no, that's why I'm getting a crystal to protect myself so that it doesn't come back to me. I was standing there because I never believed that there was such thing as witchcraft. And so I am trying to comprehend what she's trying to do. I had no words and I didn't say anything. the only thing that I could think of is like, thank God my friend is here and she's understanding what's going on. And so then the witch, you know, gets her crystal and she walks away. Shortly after though, she comes back and she tells me, I came back because I need your energy and I am stealing some of your energy. I stood there and without a word, I was speechless. I didn't know what to say. But according to her, she was stealing my energy. And then she did what she had to and left. That's when I started realizing this is very dangerous. you know, what I have here is not of God. I started understanding that it wasn't of God because nothing positive was happening. Also, because as I am doing this Reiki and being around all this type of energy, I could see how my health being affected. My personal health was just not the same and I was feeling different. So I started thinking about what I was in. Well, shortly after that, my mom comes to visit and she comes to my store. 

Now, my mom has been a Christian for many years. And she did talk to me about Christianity and Jesus, but when she talked to me about it, I really had no concept of what she was saying. And because I grew up as a Catholic and married so young and my husband was Catholic, I chose to be a Catholic. So I thought I was, doing the right thing. I kept telling my mom, no mom, I am fine where I'm at and I am okay. but I didn't understand, about accepting Jesus. And so my mom was very patient for many years and she prayed and prayed and prayed that her children will come to know the Lord. Well, she came to my store and She asked me if she could pray and I said Yes, mom, you can pray. Will she pray? Well, shortly after that, I started wanting to read the Bible. And I saw no change in what was going on and what I was doing, but because I still had a responsibility of a store, every time I did Reiki or did any type of, help for anybody with a crystal, I will call upon the only true God. I would say a prayer, but I would say I only want the true God in the name of Jesus. And as I read the Bible, I come across I came across Exodus 20:4 where it says, "you shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." And so when I read this, I believe I received revelation, and I got up and I said to my husband, did you hear this? And then I read it out loud for him so he could hear. And then I asked him, where is Jesus? And he said, in heaven. And I said, okay, and we have a crucifix of Jesus. We shouldn't be having any type of image. And so my husband only stared at me and didn't say anything else. Well, that was the first revelation. And then,

 I continue to read the Bible and I feel like a veil in my eyes was being lifted. I was understanding a little more about what I was reading and all of a sudden I started getting conviction about that type of job that I was doing and I started saying everything in the name of Jesus and I started talking about Jesus and Jesus this and that and I started feeling even a difference in my body and so I started telling my husband you know like I feel like Jesus is the only way. Like, I believe my mom, everything my mom had told us before. And my husband is like, no, you know, I think Catholicism, it's the right way. I said, no, I need to find a church. So I started looking for a church and it was during COVID I found a church that was, you know, on Google and I said, we're going to go to this church on Sunday. So my husband accepted again to support me, even though he didn't agree or he, you know, wasn't too comfortable about it. We went to church on Sunday, but because it was COVID, that church was closed. But then we passed one where we saw people coming in. So I said, ⁓ we got to stop in this one. So we went into that church and as soon as I sat there and I heard the pastor preach, I thought this is where I'm supposed to be. I felt like the Holy Spirit started making changes in me. And I feel like even though I didn't know how to verbally accept Jesus, but I feel that I accepted Jesus without really knowing that I accepted Jesus. I felt the Holy Spirit move around me and in me.

 And so there was one time where I told my husband, I really don't feel like going to work today. And I am talking about the store, because I still have the store. I said, I don't want to go to the store today. Do you mind going and opening that store by yourself? I really don't feel good. I want to stay home. In reality, what I wanted, I wanted to be home alone with Jesus and just talk to Jesus, being by myself with him. So my husband accepted. He went to the store. As soon as he walked out of the house, though, I remember I just started weeping. I was crying and crying and crying and I was like and then I went and laid on the couch and I had a blanket over me because my conviction was so big I needed to let all of that out and I started crying and saying Jesus forgive me for what I've done. I was so ashamed of the work I was doing. And of course, all my past that also I carry, which it was a lot of like ungodly things also, you know, from before. I started to just letting everything out to Jesus and confessing and asking him for forgiveness. And I felt so embarrassed and ashamed that I thought if I cover my face, he will not see me. So I put the blanket over my face and I am crying and crying and I thought you know, why do I think he cannot see me? Like he sees me even if I have the blanket over me. So I removed the blanket and I just sat there and cried for a while. After a few hours, because it was, I don't remember how many hours, but it was hours that I spent there with him, just like asking him for forgiveness. But once I was done crying, I got up and I almost got up running, grabbed like a garbage bag and started going all over my house, throwing stuff away, like cleaning my house, getting rid of crystals and tarot cards, whatever I had. I could put everything in that bag and I really just cleaned out my house. Even the crucifix that I had, I just put it away because I just didn't want nothing to do with anything that didn't belong to God. that's when I really feel that that's when I, confess Jesus as my Lord and Savior and I repented.

 And now I have a store and I don't want to work in it. I don't want nothing to do with it. And of course I feel really bad because I sent my husband and I don't want him to have to carry that, from the beginning he didn't agree. He didn't want that. Well. I talked to the Lord and I said, Lord, if you really want me to step away from what I'm doing, I ask you to make a way for me to get rid of it. Next day, I called the manager of that company that had the lease agreement and I said to him, you know, because of COVID, my store is not doing that well, so I really need to close it. But I don't know what to do with the lease agreement. Well, he did not give me a hard time. He immediately said, yes, you can close the store and don't worry. You don't have to pay this last month's Use the remainder of the month to just clean it out. And once it's clean, let me know. We'll pick up a key and we'll cancel the contract. When I hung up, I screamed for joy and I knew that God heard my prayer and made a way for me. And that was the first sign that he gave me. I do want you to step away from that type of environment. I told my husband that we were going to close the store, that the contract had been canceled. And I just told my husband what happened. My husband was happy and relieved. He told me that he felt relieved because he just never really wanted me to be a part of that. And he didn't want to be a part of that either. God actually also aligned me a great job. So right away I got a job. I went back to what I used to do before, which was banking and I have been working from home since then. And now I see that God has been so faithful and just so awesome, so amazing. 

I also pray that, well, let me go back a little bit. Two months after I joined the church, I got baptized. And I pray to God for him to give my husband a new heart and spirit. My husband did continue to join me every time we went to the service for church. So he opened his ears to hear and he would hear the gospel, our pastor preaching. And so God through the Holy Spirit gave my husband revelation and understanding. So my husband also accepted Jesus. About a year later, he got baptized. And one of my daughters also got baptized at the same time that my husband got baptized. Because I also pray to God, God, what I want for my children is for them to love you more than they love me. And my children accepted Jesus as well. I have two girls and two boys. All of them are adults now, but my second daughter got baptized two years later after I got baptized. And now we share so much about the word of the Lord and we talk about him as another member of our family. And our life has changed so much.

 I see a lot of blessings. Jesus has healed me personally, spiritually, but also he has renewed our marriage because my marriage was different, I can say that. It was different before having Jesus in our lives. Now that we have Jesus, our marriage is very different. It is more according to God's commandments and I just have so much gratitude for all the blessings. Also, the way we all communicate. My children, I can see their love for Jesus and their relationship with Him and how close we want to be with him. So it's been such a blessing because at one point where I felt like was hopeless, Jesus has come to fill that and he has filled it with like so much joy. And the peace that he gives us that trespasses all understanding. I just don't see any reason for people to go feeling hopeless and carrying their own burdens when you can have Jesus and he just makes it lighter for us is working with them also with my mom, and so my dad passed away a few years ago and I had a good relationship with my dad you know like I said I never blamed them for anything I loved them and respected them I always had a good relationship with them and so he passed away. I was able to have communication with him all the way to the end. So my mom is still around and all those prayers that she did for us, I am so glad that she gets to see the promises of God, her children being saved. My mom is filled with joy. She sees our changes. Also the fact that, of course we had our problems as a family and then not really growing up together during a very long period of time. So we had our own issues as family, like brothers and sisters. Well, Jesus has restored our family. We have such great communication now and we love each other. We talk to each other and forgive each other if we offended each other before and the only one that was able to do this to restore that's Jesus.

 So that's my story.

Tasha

Is there anything else you want to share about Jesus with our listeners today?

Ivet

It's just amazing and not enough words to express the love that Jesus has for us. And what he means for us, it's all that joy that our heart feels, you know. So that's what I've experienced. I found salvation. He saved me from all of those moments of, deception and things that happen in the world that you don't understand a lot of times. Also, because as I was in new age, I did experience a lot of demonic attacks in the beginning, when I accepted Jesus, the enemy continued to attack me, but I would say the name of Jesus and He would flee. And so I saw the power of Jesus, how powerful His name is, that just by saying His name, they run away. They tremble in the name of Jesus. And so one of the other Bible verses that I love,

Proverbs 3 : 24, "when you lie down, you will not be afraid. When you lie down, your sleep will be sweet."

And now I am a witness of that. When I go to bed, I do tell God, God, yes, now that you're with me, my dreams are sweet. Jesus has given me freedom, freedom that I've never experienced.

 I would like to tell anyone that is listening that if you feel lost and without any hope, whatever troubles you may be experiencing to please open your heart to Jesus. He is waiting with open arms for you and all you have to do is turn to him. There is no need to be alone, carrying all the burdens of life. Let Jesus help you. That's what I want to say to our listeners.

Tasha

Ivet will you pray for our listeners today? 

Ivet

Sure. So, Lord, I pray that if for anyone that's listening to this podcast, anyone that's feeling lost or without any hope, whatever troubles they're experiencing, that you please open their heart and ears so they can hear you, that you reveal yourself to them. Let them know that you are waiting for them with open arms so that they can turn to you and accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

 Matthew 11:28-30 says "come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." 

Father, I pray all of this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen.

Tasha

Thank you for joining us today at The Soaking Ground. Our email is thesoakingground.info@gmail.com