Trisha Bridges's Testimony

Trisha Bridges

Testimony Revelation 12:11 And THEY OVERCAME HIM(satan) because of the blood of the Lamb and because of THE WORD OF THEIR TESTIMONIES and they did not love thier life even to death. (caps mine) (NIV Translation)

Written by Trisha Bridges (tbridges@teens4jesus.org) I was raised in a Christian home. I accepted Christ into my heart at age 7. I did not understand the commitment I made to Christ. I was too young.I sang in the children's choir, I went to AWANA, I was active in the fun things they did. I was there all of the time. I learned to tune things out. I did not listening to the sermons. I didn't understand and I didn't care.I stopped going to my own Sunday School class in third grade.
I never felt accepted. In high school I made friends with people from church. They were good friends, but they were not walking in Christ. I had other friends who were far worse, but I was the good girl. I did things that I shouldn't have. I had no self esteem. I did anything they told me to do for fear of losing friends. We went thru a destructive stage: toilet papering, egging,etc. My junior year I was invited back to church. I went. Occassionally. I still felt very uncomfortable.I heard an awesome testimony of how God changed a man's life. I thought "Man, I don't HAVE a testimony. Mine is boring. Nothing happens in my life."
I went to See Ya at the Pole that year. I remember being ashamed at first. I wondered what everyone thought of me. I didn't say a thing. About halfway through the prayer something happened. God showed me that it did not matter what they thought. All that mattered was that I not be ashamed. He was not ashamed of me so why should I be ashamed of Him? From then on I had no more shame in praying.
My band director got a man from Celebrant Singers to come and audition me. I made it in to play french horn. It was my first time to ever discuss my faith with anyone. I didn't know what to say. He told me that he thought I was a baby in faith, but that with training and my strong desire to serve with them God would provide the tools for me to witness effectively. My parents refused to let me go. I was crushed.I now see that I was not ready. I had a lot of growing to do.
My mother set it up for me to go to Mexico with another church. I went for a weekend and helped work, invited people to church, and witnessed to children. It was awesome. I loved it. I was able to use my Spanish to communicate, though I had only had two years. God supplied the words. I was a member of all of the Christian organizations on campus, but I did not attend them. I was ashamed that I could not find things in the Bible or carry on discussions with them about Bible stuff. My pride kept me from learning, from admitting my lacking knowledge and letting them teach me. I graduated and went straight to college. A friend there needed a roommate so I moved in with her. She was a partier. We wanted to find a good church and go faithfully. It never happened.
A few days after I moved in so did about 5 other people.They mooched off of us. But they were great days. I got so close to all of them. We shared so much.
My first weekend in college was my first drinking experience. We all got drunk before going to a frat party. I don't remember much. I remember not being able to stand up very well and puking in the bushes. I don't remember anything else except lying in bed with the room spinning and crying to God to make it stop. I promised to never do it again. I broke that promise. I met a guy one day walking home from school. He was older, and had a baby girl. He used her to play on my heart. I love children. He asked me if he could change her in my apartment because he couldn't find anywhere to change her. I agreed. I was gullible, stupid, innocent. I had no reason not to trust anyone! He started hitting on me. Telling me all the things I wanted to hear. Before I knew it he was on me and I couldn't move. I was in total shock. I did not get raped but nearly did. I was touched in ways that no man should be allowed unless he is my husband. I was numb. I didn't know what to do. He kept trying to get me to take him to the bedroom. Now that I look back on it I am amazed. God protected me even then.
Not long after I had my first taste of marijuana. I loved it. It became a part of the routine. We would be high one nite or drunk the next. We stayed up all night. I missed a lot of class. I wanted one of the guys living with us. I did everything I could for him. He knew how to manipulate me. People thought we were together. He could read me like a book. He is the only personto ever know the true me.
Well, I couldn't have him. My roomie's study partner said he really liked me. I agreed to hook up with him, though I knew he was bisexual and that I had no feelings for him. I was lonely. He was into wicca, training to be a warlock, a satan worshipper. He told me he was my dark side and I was his light side. Again God protected me.
I began to show interest in witch craft. I wanted to know how it all worked. I wanted to read palms, to read tarot cards, to be psychic. I was fascinated with it. I began to buy things, and my roomies all gave me gifts to help me develope my abilities. I learned how to control my mind, to put myself into a total relaxation state. If you are interested in reading more about my experiences go to my Witchcraft Testimony. Again God was protecting me.
I ended it all when a friend taught me to communicate with spirits. She taught me how to let them use my hand to write their messages. It was a terrifying feeling, seeing your hand moving but having no control to stop it. I quickly ended it all.
Well, one day a freind invited me to church. I went. I loved it. But I was still tuning things out. I fell for a guy there, though I still had a boyfriend. I think that is why I kept going. That and God leading me. God began to work in my life. I made myself pay attention and tried not to be ashamed when I didn't know anything. I told myself it was okay since I was new to it all.
I began going by myself. I would get stoned or drunk and then go the next day never thinking what I was doing was wrong. Til one night. God spoke to me thru a lesson on second chances.I confessed my sins and asked for accountability. I floated my way home on a spiritual high... only to be dashed to peices upon returning home. They asked me why I was so happy and when I shared they attacked me. I will not share what happened. I had to move out.
I kept going to church. I learned. I longed to learn more. I wanted to be filled with God, to be overflowing with the love of Christ, for the world to see. I stopped the bad things. I stopped drinking, drugs, smoking, witch craft, my relationship with the bisexual boyfreind, skipping classes,etc. I got my life together, using Christ as my foundation.
I became involved in many different services there. I did them to glorify God.
God has sustained me thru my life. I now have a testimony. It was hard but I am able to share and let people see that it IS possible to change your life with Him. All it takes is faith.
My testimony is far from being complete. I continue to struggle with things. But God is in control and His plan is better than any plan I could ever dream of.

Witchcraft Testimony
Once in high school a girl read my palm. Her mom was a palm reader, so she read my palm. I picked up a lot of stuff from watching her read palms. That is where my interest started. And my mom and sister both claim to have some strange sixth sense types of things. My mom would have dreams. She would dream she was dying. The next day she would learn that someone had died. My sister would just get really bad premonition types of feelings. She just HAD to see so and so...NOW. She did that with both of my grandparents right before they died. It was trippy. I had the bad feelings though. I would just have a really bad feeling about something. I would have to get away from wherever I was. Leave those parties before something bad happened, get out of a certain area, get off the road,etc. Just a really bad feeling...
I went away to college. I loved to go into Spencers at the mall to check out their gag gifts, and their black light glow in the dark stuff. One day my eye was drawn to some tarot cards. I just couldn't resist...i HAD to look at them. I felt a jolt go through my hand when I picked them up. I just assumed it was electricity from dragging my feet or something...didn't think anything of it. I looked at them, and just felt one of those strange feelings. I had to buy them.
A few days later, after playing with them in my room, just looking at them and feeling mesmorized by the pictures one of my roommates decided he was going to go back to his place, which was a thirty minute drive away. I was hit by dread. I begged him not to leave.I cried and pleaded with him. It only served in prolonging his departure. He left anyways...but passed a huge wreck on the freeway. A wreck he would have been in had I not begged and pleaded.
They became convinced I was psychic, bought me books on how to develop my abilities, found people to help me, to train me, to lead me in the right way. The one lady who taught me most of what I learned told me she was a white witch...that it was in no way evil. I believed her, though now I don't. Any form of witchcraft is wrong. It is not safe...it is demonic! I spent countless hours in my bedroom with all the lights out and just candles burning. I had a really dark apartment. Forrest green floors...forrest green and dark maroon furniture and drapes and stuff. I did a lot of meditating, gaining control of my mind. Searching for the inner me- seeking my core so that I could control it. I did a lot of mind control and visualization exercises. I put myself into complete relaxation states where my roommates could be pounding on my door and I wasn't even aware of them being alive. I would visualize myself descending, going down a spiral staircase one step at a time, each step being a deeper level into my own mind and psyche. Or I would visualize me standing still with a sun resting on my head. It would have a number, depending on how out of control my mind was. Some days I only had to visualize the sun once while other days I would visualize it twenty times. Each sun would slowly pass through my body as I stood there. As it passed through me I would feel the heat rushing through my veins, warming me and relaxing me,pushing aside all other thoughts or worries. Complete relaxation and control.
Or so I thought. It wasn't control. At least not by me! I was merely letting my body go into a state of relaxation, preparing myself to let other things take control.
I had my cards read. My teacher helped me learn how to read the cards by reading me. She would tell me to tell her what I thought it meant and we would take turns. She would read one card, then I would read another. Most of the books tell you to memorize things, that so many stars meant such and such, or that when it was upside down it was a reversal of what you had memorized. They gave you a specific pattern to lay them out in. She taught me to let the cards do it all for me. That they would guide me. And that they would tell me what they meant. It came to me as a feeling. I just KNEW what it was meaning. After reading my roommates a few times I saw that I was right. I WAS reading them.
Next we started working on psychokinetic types of stuff, moving things with your mind. I learned how to make things swing by just looking at them. It was trippy! Especially since we were stoned most of the time. I would be able to set a necklace in motion, hanging from the counter or someones hand, and be able to change the direction of it just by concentrating really hard on it. Focusing all I had into it. At first it was exhausting. It amazed everyone. I loved that power. I was only able to make a pencil move once, rolling across the counter. That scared me though and it stopped. I moved on from there. I hooked up with a guy who my roommate had been studying with. He was learning Wicca stuff. So we shared what we were learning with one another. He was into Satan worshipping too. He called me his light side and said he was my dark side. I began working on mind control things: Making a car move out of my way when driving. I was just telling their psyche to move over please so that I could pass by. I don't know how much was coincidence and how much was real but a lot of people moved out of my way. I made sure that I had parking places. I would visualize what place I wanted,focus in on it so completely. It was always there.
One day my teacher asked me if I was willing to learn more. I agreed. It was the thing that scared me the most. But it also fascinated me. I watched as she focused herself,sent herself into relaxation and began talking softly to her spirit guides. I can't remember their names. I was to find my own spirit guide. He had been there all along but this new developement would allow him to communicate with me, through me. I watched as she talked with them outloud so that I would know what was happening. She had explained that they didn't need you to speak. They knew what was in your mind, what you were thinking. She let them write out their messages to her, through her hand. It was not the hand she writes with though and it was not the way she held her pencil. And it was by no means her handwriting.
I attempted it a few times. Mostly while I was in class. I was freaked out by it though. My spirit guide revealed himself to me, though I can't remember his name now, it was something I couldn't pronounce anyways. At first my messages were pretty decent. Nothing scary. Just hellos and I am here to help you with anything you need. Stuff like that. Then as I continued playing around with the dark side the messages began to get threatening. I can't remember them all exactly, but there were threats towards people I loved if I didn't cooperate. I was scared by that. I didnt' know what I was to cooperate with! Let alone how.... It began to scare me then. I told him that. He told me he controlled me and that I was his now. It was scary to see it scrawled out on paper in front of me, in a handwriting not my own...scary to see my hand moving on its own...writing these things that scared me.
I quickly ended it all. I cried out to God. He saved me from it all. I went into a severe depression though. I was depressed for months. But I was not trapped any more. I still had the emptiness within me...the dark feelings. I never once picked up the tarot cards again. Never did any of the meditations. Never used my mind to make things happen for me. I eventually broke up with my boyfriend, since he had cheated on me with another guy. (Yes that was GUY.)
My life was plagued with darkness though. The depression clung to me. It was the darkness that satan and his demons cause. Life was just weighing down on my heart, crushing my spirit. But God is wonderful. He is victorious over evil. I was redeemed! A friend moved in with us, and she took us to church with her! My life was transformed by the Presence of Jesus. You can read about it all in my other testimony. Oh what an awesome God we have! Praise the Lord for saving my soul! To Him be the glory and the power forever and ever AMEN!

Galatians 5:20-21 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.