I was born in Western Slovakia as the second child in a family of five children.

Our mother used to take us to church, but I remember that I didn’t want to go because it was long, I felt pain in my legs from all the standing and we couldn’t move. Even my older sister didn’t want to go and once at Easter, when we were praying by Jesus’s tomb, we were told to kiss his wounds. My sister refused and said that she did not want to get sick and I just repeated her words like a parrot. I also got my first migraine with an aura in the church. I was around three years old. I could not see anything and they had to take me outside. There some women spat on my eyes because they believed I had been cursed. These were very bad, pagan customs, so I got, innocently at the age of three, ensnared by esoterics – the ground of evil. The fits continued and always when I saw the frequent nightime quarrels between my parents, my mum saying that she would kill herself, scared by my father’s furious words, my migraine came back and I would stop seeing. So step-by-step my heart became closed, bitter, and I felt lonely and unloved.

I went for the First Holy Communion and Confirmation, but after that it was the end. There was nothing left in my heart which would pull me to church.

I left home to study far from my parents, just to get away from them.  In those young years I felt so free.  I became a rebel. I had many relationships, I met many guys but I didn’t love any of them – I only used them and with each one I behaved how I wanted.

Some years passed. One day I met a man who completely changed my life.  I fell in love with him, with his good heart, his kindness and tenderness.  We had a civil marriage and we were happy. At that time I was living and working abroad and since I didn’t want to pay church tax I officially left the church. I didn’t want to support something which I wasn’t interested in and didn’t believe in.

One of my colleagues was from Croatia and once in passing, she said to me, ‘Do you know that in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Our Lady has been appearing for some years?’ I couldn’t move, I was standing with my mouth wide open – I couldn’t believe it, yet felt a big fear. In that moment I realized all the bad things I had done in the past and I thought: What if it is true? What will I do? It can’t be true. It is absurd!  Some minutes later I calmed down and let go of all these thoughts.

My migraines were coming back more and more often. I went to see experts but nobody could help me, and on one occasion, one of my friends advised me to see a homeopath. So I continued moving on a dangerous path.  As no relief came, I searched further and I started bionergetic therapy. The therapist was using some strange device, measuring my energy and blockages, and with her miracoulous drops she was trying to transform my negative energy into a positive one. Obviously, there was always a pendulum.  Over time we became friends. I learned how to use a pendulum, I did yoga, I went for acupuncture, reiki from time to time, and I was getting ever closer to the edge of a precipice – in this world of esotericism. I did not know about evil spirits; I did not know anything about the merciful and good God or about angels. I only wanted to be fit and healthy.

In the meantime my husband changed jobs and was promoted. We didn’t understand how, but there was some restlessness discomfort between us. The more I was into esoterics, the more my husband was into his new job and his customers. We did not have time for each other, nor the patience or willingness to explain or discuss anything, and we were very nervous. One day he told me that he didn’t want to live this way any longer, and that although he loved me he couldn’t live with me anymore, and that we would have to go our separate ways. I could not believe it. I started shaking, and I collapsed. After three days of crying, lying in bed without any sleep, feeling lonely, all of a sudden I heard a tender, male voice saying: TRUST IN ME! I thought: Whom should I trust?  Who is it? Suddenly, I had a great desire to go to Medjugorje. But whom to ask? And where in fact is Medjugorje?  I called my niece who was very young and had been left by her husband, and who also had a lot of problems and was into occult practices too. In May 2005 we went together to Medjugorje.

...we have our Lord who is more powerful and who is ready to help us when we ask…

The evening programme in the church was very interesting. I was observing how the people went for confession, received the host, and how joyful and happy they were. How they all held a rosary in their hands and it was so normal, natural for them. I asked myself: Where am I? What kind of world is it? Suddenly it was clear to me that God exists, and that everything that I had thought and done until then, everything I chased after, was zero, nothing, fallacy. And I wanted to become the way these people were! I cried and cried, tears rolling down my face during all my days in Medjugorje, at every single holy mass. Two friends of mine, who had been to Medjugorje many times before, talked us into going up Krizevac mountain – in the night. I objected but they insisted. Finally we set out. When we reached the cross at the top after three hours, I felt indescribable peace and happiness.  Our Lady rewarded me with a “solar miracle”, confirming to me what I already had in my heart. Already on that first evening at the mass in Medjugorje I felt that God is alive, is not a fairy tale but the truth. Since that moment I have known that I want him, I need him and I want to walk with him through my life and never to loose him. On the night of the apparition on Podbrdo hill, I promised Our Lady that I would start changing my life. In that moment I felt peace, real peace, for the first time in my life.

On the day of my return from Medjugorje, my husband came back home from work quite early. He found me completely different – calm and joyful.  He was asking about it all, I was talking – he was listening to me and started thinking about everything.  That day, we started a new life.

I entered the Church in November 2005 and my husband had four months to think through whether or not he would like to be married in the church. And he agreed, although not believer at that time. Saturday 22^nd April 2006, the day before Divine Mercy Sunday, was our big day and we went to Fatima on our honeymoon.

Through esoterics and occultism we make a commitment to evil, moving into his territory and becoming his debtors. When we want to get back on the right way, the way with the Lord, evil starts making his claims upon us because we are in his debt. He starts seeking his debts by causing us huge problems – failing marriages, making many families unhappy, causing illnesses and other bad things. Many of these therapists have pictures of saints hanging on their walls, crosses and chapelets in their rooms, and they mislead people in this way, pretending that the therapy is in the name of God.  We, weak people, fall for it and are trapped! All these esoterics work with evil spirits which are sent to destroy us and lead our souls to eternal damnation. But we have our Lord who is more powerful and who is ready to help us when we ask.

Lord, thank you for your love and for a new life with you. And I thank you for your and our Mother.

I trust in you, Lord!

(Helena, Slovakia)