00:00the silence of my room became my hiding place yet inside that silence was only just more
00:08despair that's when anxiety also tagged along and it became a constant companion it became a friend
00:17of the depression i was always restless i was always on edge i was always expecting something
00:23to go wrong i was always replaying worries i was always creating the worst case scenarios in my
00:29head my own mind became a prison that i could never escape
00:35grace and peace to you um my name is funnele and i'm testifying all the way from south africa
00:50so my testimony is on the healing and restoration that god um has brought upon my life so firstly
00:59i just want to give a backstory of what was going on for so long um so for about four years i lived in
01:09what felt like a deep pit of darkness um i suffered from depression anxiety and at a later point i also
01:20suffered from psychosis which took control of my life in a way i never thought possible
01:28um but the truth is the silence had started much earlier um growing up i faced certain challenges
01:35at home that planted seeds of pain and insecurity so there were times when i felt a heavy weight of
01:47responsibility on my shoulders having to carry burdens that i believe were beyond my age at that time
01:55um having to deal with certain conflicts in the household uh certain struggles and um emotional
02:03misunderstandings that led and created an atmosphere where i often felt unseen unheard and and just alone
02:13um so even as a young person i wrestled with um severe feelings of sadness um feelings of fear
02:22feelings of pressure my nights would be filled with a worry and that's when moments of anxiety started
02:30trickling in um when tension would rise at home or times when i felt like i had no one to talk to
02:38um i then developed a habit where i was so used to keeping my feelings inside i would pretend to be fine
02:46on the outside but um while i knew that deep down i was slowly breaking down and as i grew older instead
02:56of effacing and healing from those wounds and certain situations i sought means of escape and that made me
03:07fall into um the wrong company of friends people who seemed to offer comfort people who seemed to offer
03:16um the support that i needed at that moment uh not realizing that their lifestyle pulled me
03:24further from god and deeper into destructive habits um i then got to a point where i began experimenting
03:33with um with um substances first it was out of curiosity you know out of wanting to fit in
03:40then it became a way to numb the pain of what i was carrying at home and that also just continued to
03:48escalate to a point where um i started self-harming as well um what seemed fun at that time quickly became
03:58a trap for the enemy to operate in my life um it gave him um different kinds of footholds um
04:07the substances and the self-harming gave me temporary relief but afterwards um the sadness the fear and
04:17this emptiness and the void that i was trying to feel only grew stronger um that's when depression started to
04:26take over and it became more severe um my mornings felt super and unbearable waking up would be really
04:36hard and you know things that i once loved i started to lose interest in um simple tasks such as having to
04:46get out of bed having to take a bath um cooking a meal for myself felt impossible it felt hard it felt like
04:55an entire job and a half and i then isolated myself because i didn't have the energy or the strength to
05:04face people and that was including my family um the silence of my room became my hiding place um
05:13yet inside that silence was only just more despair um that's when anxiety also tagged along and it became
05:23i would say a constant companion it became a friend of the depression um i was always restless i was
05:31always on edge i was always expecting something to go wrong my mind always ran in circles um i was
05:38always replaying worries i was always creating the worst case scenarios in my head um to a point where it
05:45even affected my body my physical health my heart would always race for no reasons i would have um
05:52um panic attacks or anxiety attacks where my hands would shake my entire body would just shake and i could
06:00never feel at peace um and then adding on to that psychosis then came along and it brought its own
06:09torment um my thoughts became clouded they became distorted i felt super disconnected from reality
06:20um i felt like i wasn't living i couldn't understand if i was existing or not at that point i was always so
06:29unable to trust what i was thinking or what i was feeling i felt foreign in my own body um many times i would
06:39hear voices condemning me out here voices i would see images images or um i felt as though i was just
06:46constantly being watched um my own mind became a prison that i could never escape and i always lived
06:57in genuine fear of myself um sleep was never an escape it would follow me even in my sleep it would
07:05come up through dreams it would come up through hallucinations and it really did affect um my life
07:12and my work life as a whole um in terms of work i struggled to focus and complete simple tasks
07:21um deadlines would slip away mistakes would just pile up on some days i did not even want to show up
07:30at all and even when i was physically present my mind would constantly be in turmoil it will constantly
07:37be in chaos and it brought about lots of embarrassment and shame and i always felt like i was just
07:44constantly leading people down um relationships around me continuously fell apart at home i withdrew from
07:55my family um i withdrew from certain friends um i would avoid conversations and i would just shut myself
08:03in my room i wanted to be in my own space that would be the only time that i would at least try to feel
08:10normal i guess if i can put it that way and also because i just i didn't want to burden my family with
08:15the weight that i was carrying at that point um and i was just creating more and more distance and i was
08:24just drifting away and people that truly cared about me also drifted away whilst the ones that i hung on to
08:32the ones that i clung on to only encouraged my destructive patterns um spiritually i felt completely
08:40cut off from god my prayers felt empty and at times i would even wonder if god can hear me or sees what
08:50is happening in my life at that point when i would try to read the word of god when i tried to open my bible
08:57it would give me no comfort at all because i couldn't focus on the words my mind was just
09:04always constantly clouded um i felt abandoned i felt unworthy of his love or even coming before
09:13um his presence and for a good four years this was just my constant life it was just a
09:20a cycle of darkness a cycle of shame a cycle of fear and and bondage until um late 2024
09:32where i believe god's mercy reached me through my mother when she encouraged me to join an interactive
09:40prayer service through god's hot tv and it wasn't the first time um i reached the point um where i told
09:48myself i have nothing to lose and let me just try it out so um during the prayer interaction um brother
09:57christ then asked us to tell god what we wanted him to do for us and at that point i i wanted nothing to
10:06do with materialistic things i it wasn't physical things that i wanted i just said lord please deliver me
10:14from all this depression all this bondage and just make me whole again and when i added those words
10:23something shifted in that moment that i cannot fully explain but i did feel the heavy burden in my heart
10:30to begin to lift and the deliverance from all of that was quite funny because i never noticed it
10:36immediately i only noticed it a few months after and that was um a conversation that i was having
10:45with someone at that point and it led to the topic of depression and all of that and i realized that
10:51the past couple of months i've actually been pretty normal i haven't had a single episode um in terms
10:59of the anxiety of the depression or the psychosis i realized that i was actually living and i felt
11:06okay that was the beginning of um my transformation um god really and truly started to work in me
11:17um i was able to build a consistent prayer life i was able to to read the word of god and understand
11:28through the power of the holy spirit what i was reading my relationships definitely started improving
11:35a lot um not just improving improving is not enough to describe what the restoration that god has brought
11:41about um in family um friends and just people around um sleeping has been amazing and now it's a
11:52no longer a place where all the darkness would follow me to um i just sleep now i can just sleep
11:59to a point where i don't even remember how i i slept i sleep so amazingly um then on saturday the 6th of
12:09september a recent um interactive prayer session that um brother chris held i joined in again
12:19and with this one i had been suffering from a constant um pain on my right shoulder blade a pain that i
12:29myself could not know how i acquired i tried to exercise i tried to stretch i tried um certain forms of
12:37therapy to get rid of it but it was just constantly and chronically there um during that prayer interaction
12:44but the curse then instructed us to reach out to wherever um there was pain in any parts of our
12:53bodies and he began to pray and whilst he was praying the pain just vanished at that very moment it just
13:03completely disappeared in that moment of prayer and i remember constantly checking myself to make sure
13:10that what i was feeling was right um my mother thought i was playing when i was shaking myself and
13:17i had to later know that no i'm just checking to make sure that that pain is really gone and it was
13:24indeed really gone can you just exercise your shoulder tell us how are you feeling now i feel amazing i don't
13:33feel anything um everything is working perfectly there's not a single ounce of pain um god has truly restored
13:43me and permanently so i don't think there's any greater advice i can give than to say surrender
13:52your lives to god just surrender to god in all that you do and allow god to transform
14:00and work in your life um allow yourself to live in the purpose that god has called for you god truly is
14:08the way the truth and the life
14:29the truth and the truth and the truth and the truth and the truth and the truth and ginger
14:41how do you deal with it
