From witchcraft to Jesus: Woman details path to Christ after years of searching for 'the truth'
Texas resident Lindsay Smith, who turned away from witchcraft and left a same-sex lifestyle to follow Jesus, said that from an early age, she had a unique ability to see things in the spiritual realm.
Adopted as a baby, Smith was raised in a traditional Christian household where she often felt misunderstood and like a bit of an outcast because her family couldn't relate to her or understand why she was frequently seeing demons.
The 24-year-old shared her journey to Christ in an interview with The Christian Post, detailing how God opened her eyes to the Gospel and delivered her from spiritual warfare at a time when she had lost all hope.
"The devil's agenda is to get you in your child years so he can keep you in your adult years," Smith said.
"I first started seeing spirits, which I thought were ghosts. I thought I had a gift of being able to see ghosts. But they were really demons. I had countless encounters of seeing things like that. The first time I saw something from the spiritual realm, it appeared to be like a black and gray dust cloud flying through my grandma's house," Smith recalled.
"There was another time I was just laying in bed trying to fall asleep, and I just saw eyes staring at me from the bathroom, and I was like: 'What is that?' Because I didn't know anything about spiritual warfare," she added.
"I didn't know anything about the fact that they were demons that I should be rebuking and that they're not ghosts. They're not kind or nice spirits of people that are just wandering around. That's not what they are. They're literally demonic spirits that were preying on me."
Smith shared her testimony in an Oct. 19 episode of Delafé Testimonies — a YouTube channel with over 580,000 subscribers that aims to "create the world's largest archive of Jesus testimonies."
In the video, she shared why she rejected Christianity from a young age.
"I was seeing ghosts, and I would tell my Christian family. … 'I'm literally being able to see in the spirit,'" Smith recounted.
"I was going and telling Christian people what was happening to me, and they would just tell me, 'it's my imagination.' They 'have no explanation for me.' That kind of made me think in my mind, 'OK, well, my answer is not in the Christian Church.'"
As she continued into grade school, Smith said she kept seeing "terrifying" demons but was told by her parents that it was all in her imagination.
"I felt like I was just always misunderstood. … I just had this depression, anxiety. I was so shy really, really like in my shell," she said.
When she entered high school, she dated a male who introduced her to the occult.
"He actually started teaching me about astrology, Ancient Egypt, all of the things like the New Age and the witchcraft stuff. I ended up getting out of the relationship. It took me like nine months to get out. The relationship was very abusive, narcissistic, and it involved mind control," Smith said.
"He would do witchcraft on my mind. It took me a long time to get out. It was like, every time I was trying to get out, blackmail, 'I'll do this and you won't be able to ever find someone else. I'll leak this picture.' It was bad," she continued.
After the relationship ended, Smith began college in 2017 and entered into a same-sex relationship with a woman who was also transitioning to become a male.
"I was dating this person, and I was learning so much about the whole LGBT mindset of being 'open, accepting whatever people, you're born this way. … There's nothing you can do. There's no solid concrete objective truth,'" Smith said.
As time passed, Smith said she continued in the relationship and practiced witchcraft but began to realize both were not bringing her peace.
"The root of it was depression. If we're being really honest, the root of it was generational curses, trauma, fear; all these different things. … It's a counterfeit. It's not real peace," she said.
After a few years of searching for answers, Smith searched online about New Age and witchcraft and came across video testimonies of former witches who turned to Christ. Those videos changed the trajectory of her life, saying, "It was the truth that I was always looking for and I finally got."
"'[I Googled] what is this New Age to Jesus? What is New Age?'… I started watching these videos for a whole week straight. I'm watching a boom, boom, just all I'm consuming is that, and I was literally destroyed. Just to be quite honest, I was very much destroyed," Smith said.
"Every single thing that I built my life on was torn down in that moment. I threw everything [out], the spiritual books. I had all these witchcraft books. They were witchcraft books. People were trying to teach you how to control and manipulate energy. It was so disgusting. So I threw all those away. I threw out all my crystals [and] sage … [and] natal chart."
After giving her life to Christ on May 23, 2021, Smith says she is still growing closer to Him in her daily walk. She said walking away from same-sex relationships and turning away from the occult are the best decisions she could have made.
Smith said she no longer sees demons and the demonic spiritual realm in the earthly world because God has since delivered her from those encounters.
"I'm still trying to figure God out. There's so many facets to Him. I can't even sit here and be like, 'I know everything about Jesus.' I know what the Bible tells me. I know I experienced Him. I know how I talk to Him. I know when He answers my prayers. I know that about Jesus," Smith said.
"He said in His Word, we prophesy in part, but at some point, it's going to all be revealed to us. I'm like, 'I know You, but I know there's so much more to You that I don't know.'"
Nicole Alcindor is a reporter for The Christian Post.