True Stories

A New Life

15 Sep 2021

Alicia Holloway tells her story:

I came from a dysfunctional atheist family setting and failed to find purpose in life. I tried to look for someone in this world who had achieved happiness, and found no one.

That’s until I came to a Revival Fellowship meeting in 2013. Everyone at the meeting shone with joy, and I quickly learnt that this came from a relationship with God. I wanted that relationship with God too, so I got baptised by full immersion and received the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, as the bible says. That was – and still is – the happiest day of my life. It’s been a blessed life since.

In 2012, before I came to know God, I was diagnosed with major depression and prescribed antidepressants. I hated the medicine and began trying to wean myself off it. I persevered for months but was unable to, as the symptoms were too strong.

Not long after I was filled with God’s Spirit, while overseas in PNG I lost my medicine with 5 days left of my trip. I knew going cold turkey would mean a severe and rapid demise of my mental well-being, so I prayed for God to heal me. Amazingly, my mental state improved from that day forth. When I returned to Australia I prayed to God that if I had even a single symptom of depression I’d go back on the medicine. I have been free of depression since!