Out of the Darkness: The Michelle Bless Story - Softcover

Bless, Michelle

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1462083420 ISBN 13: 9781462083428

Publisher: iUniverse, 2012

Synopsis

A young girl was abused by her family and ostracized for being associated with Satan, the devil; Out of the Darkness shares her story of redemption. Born in the northeastern United States to parents from the Caribbean, author Michelle Bless was raised in a home of violence and suspicion. Her father regularly beat her mother and siblings but initially spared her because of her perceived association with Satan. Even so, this did not save her from other abuses; she witnessed incidents of violence, incest, and other horrible, unthinkable acts. One hot summer day in 1997, Michelle was introduced to the Lord and denounced Satan, thus beginning the process of giving her life to the Lord. After two years of demonic attacks, she was fully delivered of all strongholds and has never looked back. Today she lives for the Lord. Her firsthand knowledge of how low a life can plummet into the depths of despair enables her to understand and relate to what others are facing as they struggle to find God in their lives. Michelle is on a mission to bring as many lost souls to God as possible by relating her personal life struggles and testimony to anyone who will open their hearts to her story.

About this title

About the Author

Michelle Bless was born and raised in Ohio. She has been a radical Christian for fourteen years. In addition, she is a devoted advocate for battered and sheltered women in the community through her 20/20 outreach ministry, as well as through public speaking engagements in Ohio. She currently resides in Kentucky with her husband.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Out of the Darkness

The Michelle Bless StoryBy Michelle Bless

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Michelle Bless
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-8342-8

Chapter One

Sold into Slavery and Meeting Satan's Team

Michelle has four other siblings (three brothers and one sister) and is the second oldest. She grew up in the northeastern United States. Several other siblings didn't survive the brutal beatings that her mother endured. In order to understand Michelle, you must have a peek into the family history.

I am Michelle. This is my story.

My mother was born in the Caribbean, and she had twenty- two siblings. Her father was a voodoo priest who molested all his children except her. My father rescued my mother after paying off my grandfather. The incest came out when my mother was visiting her parents. Concealed by a curtain, her brother was having sex with her sister, but when the curtain fell down, the incest was exposed. Brother and sister were having sex with each other, and the grandfather was molesting the boys and the girls. Mom was fifteen when she discovered this.

When my father had finished paying off my grandfather, my mom married him at age seventeen. Grandfather died when she was pregnant with me, and my mother was warned not to attend his funeral, but the family said that the baby she was carrying was sold to Satan as a curse. When she got to the funeral, they blew things in the air at her, but she paid no attention because she was busy looking at her father in the coffin.

A lot of her relatives on her father's side came to her and said she was carrying a girl (which was me), that I would have special gifts, and that I belonged to their God. My mom said she looked at them, thought no more about it, and walked away. She went to the funeral to be sure he was dead, but instead, without her knowledge, her attendance was just what they needed to enforce the curse on me because I was inside her.

My mom's dad and his sisters and brothers all worshipped the dark side and used various means to mark me for the dark underworld. Now, my father also came from the witchcraft world as well. My grandparents on my dad's side owned a farm, and the satanic rituals would take place there every summer. I spent time with my grandparents, and this is where my nightmare began.

My grandmother was unaware that my grandfather began to involve me in his satanic rituals and that he was molesting me. There were blood sacrifices and people wearing black hooded robes and lots of group sexual escapades. She recollects seeing a pentagram and candles. The priests would drink the blood of animals and of each other and the pigs, and they would rub the blood all over themselves and pour blood on each other when they would have sex. They would summon their demons by name, and they would levitate tables. There were all kinds of people who were pedophiles and rapists, but they didn't touch me because I was dedicated to Satan. My grandfather read the tarot cards and used the Ouija board. The men were molesting the women to impregnate them because my grandfather told them to do that.

From ages six to twelve, however, I was touched inappropriately by my grandfather and forced to satisfy his sexual needs and desires in every possible way. He threatened to use my sister if I didn't give him what he wanted, and so I never told anyone over the course of those sexual encounters. I had been taught by one of the women accomplished in the occult to have out-of- body experiences, and I would sit on the couch and watch my grandfather molest me.

Chapter Two

Battling Abuse from All Sides

The abuse I suffered from my grandfather seemed to be nothing compared to my father's physical abuse, which included things like the cold tub. I was to draw a full tub of ice-cold water. He would then submerge me in the water until I was completely wet; then he would pick me up by my feet and beat me with an extension cord till the tub was bloody.

He also beat my mother every day. We would try to stop him, but he would beat me and my other siblings whenever they tried to help. He would drag my mother up and down the stairs. We were never allowed to call him Dad; if we did, he would beat us. So we called him by his name because he never had a father to call Dad. He used broomsticks, ironing boards, and the barrel of a gun to beat us. Sometimes he would lock me in the closet.

My dad had an after-hours club in our basement, where I observed the people drinking. Many seemed able to laugh, giggle, and be happy. Some of the people would get up and try to shake it off; they would still be laughing as they fell and hurt themselves, but they continued to have fun. Apparently, what they were drinking made them feel better, so I wanted some.

I waited for the people to leave or pass out, and I would drink what was left in the discarded cups. I realized that the alcohol could numb me from the pain of the beatings, and I started to drink at the age of four. Nobody ever knew I was drinking, and I thought it was amazing. So whenever my father beat me, I would laugh at his beatings. He just thought I was crazy.

When I was six years old, the demons started to manifest to me. I knew they looked scary, but I was not afraid. The demons always had a vile, stinky smell, and I would tell them so. They were nice to me, and so they became my friends. The human spirits also came to me. I knew the human spirits were different because they didn't stink. They would just watch me and report back to Satan, as I later discovered.

I could see demons in other people's houses. I would ask them to stop my dad from hurting us, but they explained that they couldn't intervene. I could see demons walking with people sometimes, and the demons would urinate on them and put feces on them, and they wouldn't even know it was happening.

They told me to urge my mom to leave after one of her severe beatings. And then she would crawl on the floor through her blood and go to a small table in the corner of the room. There she would reach for her Bible and explain to me that she loved the Lord, and she would tell me to remember that Jesus loved me. I would say, "Who is Jesus? If he loves us, why does he allow my father to beat us the way he does?" I then developed a hatred for Jesus, and my mother realized that. She couldn't talk about Jesus around me anymore; she couldn't reach me.

One day I was sitting outside on our porch with the neighborhood kids. One of the kids asked why I called my father by his first name instead of Dad, and I said to them, "I can call him Dad whenever I want to." As I was saying that, my dad pulled into the driveway. And they dared me to say "Dad" when he got out the car. As he approached, the kids greeted him as Mr. David; my dad just grunted. I said, "Hey, Dad," and that's the last thing I remember.

I woke up from a fierce beating, lying on my back on the porch with a double-barrel shotgun to my face and my mouth full of blood. My nose was broken. My dad said to me, "Bitch, didn't I tell you not to ever call me Dad?"

I said, "Yes, sir."

He said, "Why did you call me Dad? And you better not lie."

I said, "The kids dared me."

He said, "If you ever call me Dad again, I will blow your motherfucking brains out—do you hear me?"

I said, "Yes, sir."

He said, "Get up and tell your mammy to take care of you. And throw that got damn dress away because I ruined it with blood all over it."

I went inside the house. My mother had seen everything. She took my dress off and held me and said she was so sorry. I told her it was not her fault and that one day it was going to be okay, and we would be all right.

I had always been very sheltered from other children, and I only had one friend, named Neese. One of the things that affected me the most was that I was teased by the other children because they made fun of my voice. They said I sounded like a boy but looked like a girl. My deep voice always felt like a curse, and I never understood why.

While in elementary school I was taught that black people came from apes, and white people came from the mountains, where they lived in caves; at least that was what my teacher told me. My father confirmed that theory to be true; he told me I looked like a monkey, and I believed it.

At age twelve I had a mature body and was completely developed. One day my dad sent me to pick up my sister from the half-day school, and a man dressed in army clothes (I later found out he was a bank robber) saw me and grabbed me. Luckily, I escaped his grasp. As I was running, a car struck me, and a neighbor looking out her window screamed, "Run, baby!" I survived and continued to run, still being chased by the man.

The neighbor called my dad and the police. I passed out, and my dad found me almost at the school. The only loving gesture I have as a childhood memory was him picking me up and carrying me in his arms with a blanket. He took me to my mother and then pursued the man—who was later found beaten nearly to death. The man was charged with bank robbery, attempted kidnapping, and attempted rape.

Chapter Three

Protecting the Weak

My aunt had ten kids, and my dad helped raise them because their dad was dead, and their mother was a stone-cold alcoholic. I sensed that my cousins started to be attracted to me, and they started to make comments to me that were inappropriate. I avoided them at all cost.

My grandfather started looking at my little sister, and I confronted him. One weekend while we were visiting my grandparents, he said to me, "Tell your sister to come upstairs."

For the first time I stood up to him and told him, "If you touch my sister, I will kill you dead—do you hear me? I will kill you dead." He just looked at me crazily with his eyes bulging out, and I went back downstairs and grabbed my sister and held her. My grandfather never mentioned that again, and I never left my sister alone when we visited. I always kept her with me, even when I went to the bathroom.

My grandfather met with his friends in the barn. I started to invite myself to the séances, and they all seemed to be afraid of me. I stopped coming to the rituals when I saw them preparing a sacrifice; I didn't see the actual sacrifice, but I knew it took place. When I confronted my grandfather about the children's whereabouts, he said, "I didn't see any kids, so shut up." I did remember seeing a child, but I just left it alone. I remember the kid was naked and in the same place where they performed all the animal sacrifices. My grandfather then told me that I was Satan's, and that was why I was never sacrificed. He used to say to me that I was special and very important, that Satan's followers were my friends, and that the demons were there to serve and protect me.

By the age of nine I had become the intercessor for my siblings and took the majority of the abuse so they would not be beaten as much. My father would come in drunk late at night, cussing and saying, "Bitch, where you at?" I knew he was talking about my mom, so I would be at the door waiting on him with my hands on my hips, and I would get smart with him. He started beating me for a while, and then he would fall on the floor and pass out. I would go in my room, and afterward my mother just looked at me and never said a word.

At the age of thirteen I became suicidal. When I talked to the counselors at school, my companion demon would direct me not to tell about the abuse and beatings because I would be taken away. The beatings for my brothers and sister and for my mother would go on and probably increase, and then my mother would probably be killed by my father if I did say anything.

Chapter Four

Demon Possessed

The hospitals would keep me when I actually started to attempt to kill myself. I would be visited by the demons and would be shown things while I was unconscious. I would be participating in sacrifices during my out-of-body experiences, especially during Halloween. In my spirit I saw people eating parts of people during my adventures in the underworld. My personal demon would escort me and tell me I should participate in the various rituals, which I refused.

I would be riding in the car with my grandfather and his friends, and I saw people sometimes hitchhiking or walking the streets. Sometimes my grandfather and his friends would abduct them; we would collect several people at one time. During this time he had stopped molesting me; I discovered later it was because I was being saved for Satan.

I discovered that I had powers that I hadn't known about. I would make statements in school about people who had made fun of me; for example, I would say, "Hope I never see you again," and they would disappear, or I would want their legs broken, and it would happen. It was my demon friends that made it happen, and my demons would tell me I had power. Although I had the ability to hurt people, I chose not to cause harm to the innocent.

The neighborhood boys started to notice me. One day at a neighborhood party, one of the boys tried to rape me, and my demons attacked him. They carried me home, only for me to later realize that my jaw was swollen. My daddy refused to take me to the hospital, so the next day my mother did. They learned that I had to have emergency surgery. I stayed in the hospital for eleven days because poison was found in my jaw, and it needed draining.

During my stay at the hospital, I would play games with the nurses and have the demons do things to them. My mother finally confronted me and said, "What are you doing to these nurses?" I explained it was my friends, and when I named them, my mother knew they were demons.

When I was thirteen, my grandfather was afraid of me and knew I had powers. While I was in the barn, my grandfather's friends and demons would say, "Commit to Satan," and then the demons would throw up and urinate on people, and they asked if I wanted to kill my daddy. I forbade them, because I wanted him for myself.

When I was fourteen, my dad called for me to come upstairs, and then he told me to tell my mother to fix him something to eat. I went to the bottom of the steps and said to my mom, "Your master said fix him something to eat."

He heard me and came running down the steps. He burst into the kitchen, where I was with my mom. He came up to me and said, "Bitch, what did you say to your mother?" and he hit me twice. I fell to the floor and then got back up and stared my dad down. He said, "Say what you said."

So I said, "Mom, your master said fix him something to eat." I said it loudly and nastily, and he hit me full in the face with his fist. I fell back the second time and landed in our big cupboard. This was where he had a tree trunk with a sharpened ax on it. I fell on the ax and started to bleed.

My mother screamed and grabbed me to check my back, but there were no cuts or anything. Then she let me go, looked down at me, and said, "Jesus."

My eyes turned black, and my body stood back up on its own. My dad looked at me, wide-eyed; then he said, "Ooh, forget this shit," and he walked out of the kitchen.

Chapter Five

Murder Witness and Seeking a Safe Haven

I turned to my mother and said, "I'm leaving."

My mother begged me not to leave, but I insisted that I had to go. Then she said, "He will beat me again," and I started crying. I said to my mom that if I didn't leave, I was going to kill him. The rage that was in me was strong, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to kill something; so I kissed my mother and left.

I walked the streets for hours. Finally I was picked up by a relative who was a street cleaner, and he took me to his sister's house. I stayed with this other cousin for a month during which time I fought off three uncles and my male cousin and barely escaped being raped several times.

During that time, one night while looking outside the window, I could see inside another house and observed a man beating and choking a woman. He had tied a sheet around her neck, and she was naked. The police were called, and they went in the house. While I looked, they carried a body out and handcuffed the man. Then they went knocking on doors.

I told my cousin I had seen what happened, so when the police knocked on our door, she told them I had seen everything from the window. So they took me downtown and took my statement and told me that when the man went to court, I would be called to testify.

The man did go to trial, and I had to testify, but the man got off on the murder charge. His attorney twisted my story by asking me what color the sheet was that I saw tied around her neck. I said white. He laughed and said, "No, it was yellow." With that he got his client off.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Out of the Darknessby Michelle Bless Copyright © 2012 by Michelle Bless. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: iUniverse
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1462083420
• ISBN 13: 9781462083428
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 64