I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”
Ruth 1:21
My name is Fatima Lasay. I was saved on June 16, 2023 as a sinner. This is my testimony.
I was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. My family were Roman Catholics.
At age 16 I went to university. There I encountered Christian evangelicals for the first time.
They criticized popular culture and the Roman Catholic religion. I was intrigued. They backmasked rock music to reveal hidden demonic messages. That captured my fascination with the occult.
So instead of the Bible, I read books on witch trials. Instead of the Gospel, I learned cartomancy and palmistry. Instead of knowing sin and fearing God, I wrote stories hating God and celebrating humanity.
After university, I outgrew the occult and pursued my ambitions. I won art competitions and started teaching at university. I won research grants, published in academic journals and books. I got invited to speak at conferences, art exhibitions and workshops in many different countries.
By age 35 I considered myself to be a success. Then I decided to settle down.
I told the man, 24 years older than me, that I wanted to live with him. I was married for 18 years.
All those years, the relationship was a struggle. I was subjected to relentless criticism and insults in a relationship that I expected to be a successful partnership.
Within a year, I began to experience mild depression. I didn’t realize I was in an abusive relationship. A psychiatrist prescribed antidepressants. Shortly, my husband and I moved from Manila to Bohol. I became isolated from family and friends.
I gave up my career to focus on making married life successful. I became a housewife and livestock farmer.
In 2013, a destructive earthquake destabilized the delicate mental balance I was trying to maintain. I fell into depression again. Consulting with a psychiatrist in Bohol, I was given antidepressants. Ultimately, I was just keeping afloat in an abusive and godless marriage.
With the COVID-19 restrictions, I succumbed to depression once more. This time, my husband and I decided to consult a psychologist.
From August 2020 to January 2021, my husband and I were in therapy with a very popular Bohol psychologist. He was active in Catholic charismatic ministries. But his therapy worsened my condition.
After couple’s therapy in October 2020, what started as mild depression became destructive and violent behaviour towards my husband.
When I terminated therapy and filed an ethics complaint, the psychologist threatened me of reprisals.
He falsely claimed I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He shamed me by circulating confidential documents and drawings acquired during therapy. I struggled to fulfill the requirements of my ethics complaint because I couldn’t find a lawyer to help me. Lawyers refused to help because they worked with the psychologist in their marriage annulment cases.
In January 2023, I won my ethics case.
The psychologist was found guilty of misrepresenting his credentials and engaging in multiple relationships in violation of ethics rules and professional standards.
But maltreatment in therapy, the blaming, shaming and threats have resulted in unspeakable misery.
I could not tolerate my emotions. I couldn’t control my actions. I was destroying things in our home. I was pointing knives at my husband and accusing him of rape. I was crying, screaming and hitting myself. I tried to hang myself with a rope used for tying pigs for slaughter.
In December 2022, my husband became seriously ill. In my broken mental state, I did everything I could to keep him alive. Before he passed away I managed to tell him, “I’m sorry. I’m grateful. I wish we had more time. I love you.”
In April 2023 I became a widow with no children, far away from family and friends, struggling with grief, and the mental brokenness caused by abuse and therapy.
I fought on, determined to start a new life. I believed I could carry on like before. I was doing well for the first several weeks. Until one day, I began to fall apart.
I desperately tried to save myself by going back to Catholic church. I paid someone to pray for my dead husband. I tried Buddhist meditation, Qigong and traditional healers. I went to a cardiologist who prescribed antidepressants. I even went to another psychologist who told me to identify my “triggers” and take anxiolytics.
But my condition just became worse. Religious rituals terrified me, antidepressants made my arms and legs tremble, psychological methods made no sense anymore. I was afraid of everything.
I couldn’t eat and physical activity was becoming difficult. I thought I was going to die.
On June 16, 2023, I sent a message to someone managing and pastoring an orphanage in Dauis. He responded to my message and came immediately with his wife and 4 other pastors visiting from Cebu, Mindanao and the US. They read verses from the Bible and they prayed.
That afternoon, although I knew very little of the Bible, I deeply felt I was the person spoken to in Ephesians 2:1:
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins”! When asked if I repent of my sins, I didn’t give that same lame reply that I gave the campus evangelicals over 35 years ago. Instead my soul wept to God for the offenses of my arrogance, indignation, anger and uncontrollable rage, my diabolical pride, self-righteousness and lusts.
Previously, I disliked all notions of sin and repentance. I believed everybody was good by nature.
Besides, how could I be a sinner when I was the victim of abuse and maltreatment! But this time, I knew I was a sinner deserving to die. My self-righteousness was falling apart. I was never truly seeking after God (Romans 3:10-12), and my heart is deceitful and wicked (Jeremiah 17:9-10).
All my life I prided myself on my self-sufficiency and goodness. But that day I just needed to tell someone how ashamed I was of my sins and I will die.
That was the day I began to heal. My symptoms were replaced by a growing desire to read the Bible and pray. At first, I had a hard time reading the Bible when topics of death, suffering and calamity were mentioned. I interpreted 1 Timothy 5:5 as a direct curse on me by God.
The Psalms, however, became my first comforter. I felt the psalmists were with me in my sinful helplessness. I wasn’t alone! In the Psalms I learned to wait upon the Lord. How could anyone dare make demands on God! Who am I to think I have done anything for myself!
The Psalms made sense of all my suffering. It wasn’t for nothing! I was crushed and humbled before a just and holy God!
I also began to recognize the conditions for God’s promises in the Bible. I desired to obey His decrees. The true Gospel began to overcome me. I no longer feared reading the rest of the Bible.
My discernment changed considerably. I became sensitive to false preaching. I refused suggestions that I still need to do things to “complete” my salvation. I refused the indoctrination that I am saved if I “decide” to accept and follow Jesus. I was extraordinarily sensitive to rituals that claimed powers to rebuke spirits of any kind. I was appalled at misappropriations of selected verses in the Bible. I fiercely rejected suggestions that Jesus is not God. And when false preachers discouraged my fondness for the Bible, I read the Bible even more!
It is true that those whom Jesus calls know His voice and He knows them by name. Nothing will snatch them away from His hand! (John 10:27-28)
In August, just two months into my new Christian life, God began to lead me to new relationships. I had a humble and patient discipler. We met on Saturdays in Tagbilaran City. We talked about Jesus as much as we pleased! I joined an online ladies’ Bible study on the Book of John. I went to Cebu to celebrate Christian fellowship with new friends. I started going to Christian churches that preached the Bible.
My heart began to grow very fond of Jesus and I finally understood what it meant to have a personal relationship with Him.
I used to be ashamed of any mention of the name of Jesus. But now I can’t stop talking about Him.
I also didn’t understand what it meant to be “born again” until it happened to me. John 3:7-8 became a personal reality. 1 Timothy 5:5 no longer felt like a curse. Instead it became a blessing. Imagine, all night and all day I can pray, worship, seek and set my hope on God!
Looking back, I realized what I experienced was the saving grace, the unmerited favor of God.
The people who exploited me in my most vulnerable state were nowhere to be found. The psychologists either ignored me or just made patronizing comments. I no longer felt bad about them. Like me, they need to be saved. So instead of getting angry, I prayed for them.
I begged women in my village to stay with me at home but they were all busy with their own families. The loneliness and grief was achingly difficult. But God is teaching me to depend on Him completely. 2 Corinthians 3:5 is truth! Our sufficiency is from God alone!
Now I see people as desperately needy. When they die, they are only either saved or damned.
I remembered all those dying people in hospital when I was caring for my husband. My desire to be a witness to others grew. John 15:16 spoke volumes when previously it didn’t. God saved me for His purpose and glory. I must share this to others!
Today, I stand fast in the faith by the Bible. Knowing that all mental distress is rooted in sin, I bring my symptoms to the cross of Jesus.
Repenting of my sins of self-harm, suicide attempts and destructive rage brought rest to shame and guilt in ways psychotherapy couldn’t achieve.
The Word of God truly has the power to renew the mind and regenerate the spirit.
I experienced the truth of 2 Corinthians 5:17. The old things have passed away and all has become new. The prescription of Paul in Philippians 4:6-8 is my daily therapy. The doctrine of justification by faith in Romans 5:1-5 beats all models of treatment in psychology or psychiatry. What greater validation is there than our justification by grace through faith in Christ alone! Matthew 6:33 set my priorities right. The great commandment (Matthew 22:36-40) and the great commission (Matthew 28:19-20) gave my life direction and purpose.
In Jesus I have peace because He has overcome the world (John 16:33)!
For over 50 years I lived in the darkness of sin. But God in His mercy did not give me what I deserve. Instead, Jesus who suffered and died as substitute for my transgressions became the first to rise from the dead. And He has proclaimed light to the unsaved (Acts 26:23). Oh Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever! Salvation is of the LORD!
Fatima Lasay
August 2024
Baclayon, Bohol, Philippines