Michaela Vlková
- Details
- Created on Tuesday, 28 June 2016 19:59
I have known Katka and Zdenek Uhlik on a grearter personal level since autumn 2014. They came to our church In Hradec Kralove to serve by lectures on prayer and evangelization, followed by evangelization itself in the evening hours in a non-Christian environment. I had a very deep and personal talk with Katka that day, closed by a prayer. Since then we have been in touch.
Last autumn was a most mentally severe period for me, as I was fighting with the very core of my being – my spiritual identity. I was experiencing great doubts about the fact of really being a God´s child. Whatever Bible passage I picked to read I could not think of myself otherwise than as of a self-willed person. Even though I clearly realized how much I needed God´s mercy and forgiveness, my depression state of mind, I was suffering from, made it impossible to perceive God differently than a strict judge who is very dissatisfied with my way of life and who will have no other option than to send me to the lake of fire.
Thinking about this most of the time, I suffered from insomnia. In addition to that, I did not feel happy among other people, which only deepened my doubts about having Christ´s love inside me. This heavy burden lay on my mind as I came to a conclusion that I cannot follow what God says – go and preach the Gospel – as my inner state of mind and the good piece of news in Gospel were not in integrity and therefore it would not be credible if not even untrue. I wish I had died as I could not imagine that there can be something even worse than to have a knowledge of God´s plan for a human being which goes hand in hand with a total disqualification from living this.
In this state of mind I wrote an e-mail to Katka, specifying my situation to her in a great detail. I started to fear that I did not belong to Christ but to Satan and I supposed that Katka is able to clarify this matter to me and hopefully could offer some help too. Very soon I got her reply in which Katka said that having read my e-mail it would be better to meet and deal with it personally. She and her husband were quite busy at that time so we could not meet straight away but we agreed on the soonest possible term which was in about a month to come. When I arrived to their pretty place, some things have already changed for the better. Basically, I had come to a point where I realized that I was very improbable to find answers to some difficult questions myself.
I could either keep reasoning about them or decide to believe God´s word: that Jesus really had called me, that I am saved through his grace solely and that I can dare to hold on this (no matter if I could see any fruits of the Holy Spirit in my life or not). So, I did not enter their place in a completely hopeless state of mind but in a state where something had already started to change significantly. The antidepressants, I had started to take, may have played its non-negligible role as to the increased ability to step out of the vicious circle of fruitless reasoning. Even though they might have had such a positive effect on my psyche, they are not
all-powerful as they are unable to solve the very core of the depression problem.
It was such a wonderful time at Katka and Zdenek´s. I felt accepted, taken care of and loved and I could feel the deep peace in their household. I shared the story of my life with them, watched several sermons Katka had highly recommended to me. They have been very deep, transforming and perfectly fitting in my situation. Later, they asked about the spiritual background in my family and prayed for me. We confessed the sins of my family and then they declared me free from all the harmful influences from my non-Christian family background. Nobody has ever prayed for me like this before. I had heard about the negative influence of family curses and sever times was I reasoning if this happened to be also my case or not. As if I was not able to live my Christian life fully but not knowing why. After declaring freedom in Jesus´s name for me, they gave me blessings. I do not remember the exact words of their prayer except Zdenek asking Lord for joy for me when leaving their place and it really happened!
I am convinced that the negative thoughts I believed in, are no longer the destructive power over me. For instance, I believed the fact that depression, which also my father suffered from, is a hereditary disease; that the indifference and lack of interest (I can perceive at my grandmother) is hereditary too as well as insufficient will-power (that my mother seems to have). These thoughts had previously led me to a notion that no matter what I wished to be I was predetermined to be a person with such contemptible qualities, qualities that I greatly loathed. Nevertheless, when I was leaving for home from Katka and Zdenek, I was experiencing inner confidence in a fact that whatever there is in my family, it has no more power over me because in Christ I am a new creation and have been granted all spiritual sources from God to live such a life He would be pleased with.
I have also experienced a momentary touch of what a good relationship between a father and a daughter may look like, when Zdenek was patiently listening to me trying to help me with a technical problem. I still have this picture on my mind: a patient father who gives his time to his children. It is not that simple to understand God´s unconditional love that expects nothing in return if your closest relationships are often the contrary. Even though I have mentally accepted the fact that God is different from people as for His love, it was as if my heart remained untouched or touched just very little. From this aspect, I have received a very important encouragement from Zdenek as far as my self-image as a woman is concerned. I no longer approach my dating with a man, God sent me, with worries but more with hopeful expectations of what God is going to develop in my personality that I may later give this special friend of mine. I know now that it is not simply true I have nothing to give to others.
Physical recovery is probably more measurable than mental one. Therefore, I am unable to state the exact content of recovery of my psyche. I don´t know, if there happens to be still something waiting to be healed. But considering the changes in my self-image and the degree of hope I have now, compared to some time ago, I dare to say, I have accepted inner deliverance from the distorted ideas which kept attacking my value of a human being during the dark time of depression. To God be the Glory! Halleluia!
Michaela, 29 years