TESTIMONY by Ioannis Dimitriadis

I have seen the hand of God in my life, and His grace has followed me since I was very young. I was born into a Christian family of pastors and ministers. As I grew up, I made my own plans and assumptions, as I had no idea of the great plans God had in store for me, though It seemed that the enemy knew a few.

I was born in Germany, and from a very young age I knew what it meant to encounter resistance, and what Christians refer to as spiritual attacks. When I was just 2 ½ years old, I required surgery under total sedation. At that time, in these cases the percentage of babies who woke up after the anesthesia was very low. Yet after much prayer on the part of my parents, the Lord answered my father, telling him that I was a “gift”. A few hours later, I was one of the few infants who woke up in that hospital wing.

When I was one year old, we moved back to Greece, our home country. I was born into a family of musicians, and when I was five, they recognized that gift in me, and urged me to start the piano. To be honest, as a kid I really didn’t want to play an instrument, so I did it in obedience, often with tears in my eyes.

Nevertheless, I grew up in a good home, surrounded by love. I have a younger brother whom I love very much. He is now a brilliant minister and worship leader full of the Holy Spirit.

While I was growing up, everything proceeded normally: school, piano, church, friends, etc. Yet resistance was always present; sometimes mild, yet at other times severe, as I began to suffer intermittent attacks. My closest friends and family members did not know about these frightening attacks until I shared this testimony years later. For a long time as I was growing up, the enemy sometimes interrupted my sleep. I could feel a demonic presence in my room. Then, paralyzed by fear, I could feel the enemy grabbing me by the neck, trying to choke me. Nothing worked except calling on the blood of Jesus. Then the enemy would immediately leave me. And the Lord comforted me, demonstrating that He was with me by revealing the presence of an angel in my room.

As I entered puberty, I wasn’t the easiest kid to get along with. I tended to upset everyone and everything around me. I was still taking piano lessons, and after an audition, to my great surprise, a professor who was one of the most highly reputed Greek classical pianists of his day accepted me in his piano department. Little did I know that this man would play a decisive role in my life as a teacher and mentor.

After finishing high school, I took a sabbatical year off. My motivation was simply to do whatever I wanted, as I never really liked school. At the time, I was in a stage of rebellion against my parents, music and church, where I had been playing drums on the worship team. I turned my back on it all, left abruptly, and went into the world for a few years of unending partying, new friends, motor bikes, and revved up cars. We drunk and smoked anything we could get our hands on with quick and easy access. I left home for days, staying in various places in Greece, from friends’ houses to sketchy places where sin was blooming. During those years, the resistance and attacks stopped. Could the enemy have been pleased with my rebellion? Wasn’t rebellion against God why he fell? Is that why he left me alone?

I had also abandoned my piano teacher, who kept searching for me to encourage me to continue my studies. A year later, my father was organizing summer music academies, and he urged me to take part. I attended an academy solely as a vacation with friends. We spent the entire music festival drunk, looking for fun and a good time.

During those two rebellious years I actually was looking for love and satisfaction, but didn’t find it, as none of these things really satisfied me. When I realized that I was wasting my life and there was no future there, I came back to my senses and starting thinking about getting back to normal.

Restart

At 18, a year after my sabbatical break, I returned to the summer academy and started playing piano again. My teacher suggested that I stop our private lessons and complete my education at a state educational institution.

At the summer academy, I had met my next professor. We had an outstanding chemistry from day one. I sat for entrance exams and passed to the State Conservatory of Thessaloniki. Indeed, it was very good for me to be there.

During my first years I made remarkable progress, won a scholarship, and got good grades. On the other hand, without realizing it, I felt like I had lost my former good piano teacher. Shortly afterward, he started overseeing my progress, and he gave me private lessons at his home once again. Then suddenly one day we received a phone call. My teacher had left this world. His death came at a great personal cost for me, because to me, he was music. I had lost my support and my spiritual father. During the next few weeks at the conservatory, I could not recover. In a few years, I would start my final year, which would end by my sitting before piano juries in order to earn my diploma.

But that year the atmosphere at the conservatory was very tense. There were frequent student demonstrations and teachers’ strikes. As a result, instead of enjoying my fullest and richest year as a student, I was forced to miss multiple lessons in eight months of starts and stops. I had to request a date for my final exams four times. Each time, they were postponed, as the conservatory was closed. Discouraged, I stopped practicing. Then one day the conservatory called, asking if I could perform my two-hour program the next day at 3 o’clock. But I had already given up.

A Long-Awaited Dream

Since my teens, I’d always expected that one day I would study music in Germany. I considered this crucial, since a Greek piano diploma (Bachelor’s degree), would grant me access to a higher academy. Eventually, I agreed to perform my recital, anticipating I’d leave soon afterward for Germany. But needless to say, it was my worst performance ever, and that before a fully booked audience including editors ⎯ one being the executive editor of a well-known newspaper  ⎯  several distinguished conservatory directors, and more. It took me many years to get over that ordeal.

After the recital, I took 10 days off, and then immediately started preparing for Germany. I wrote to a German professor I’d met at the summer academy, and went to Germany to start lessons with him. But immediately upon my arrival, he informed me that private lessons required far too much work at my level, which at the time was below German standards. Therefore, he could not admit me to the university until I first passed the entrance exams on my own. Fair enough. After a few intensive lessons and good progress, I wanted to prove to myself that I deserved something better than a shameful ending.

One more crucial point: At the time, I faced either passing the entrance exams or doing my army service for one year. In the end, out of 110 competitors, I was one of only two accepted by the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts, a famous university known at the time for its prestigious piano department. So I moved to Germany.

However, at the time, Greece’s relationship with Germany was troubled by economic debt, which made it very difficult for me (as a Greek) to find an apartment. Being at the university was also challenging ⎯ I was alone in a foreign country with endless lessons, little time to practice, language difficulties, new relationships and unfamiliar professors ⎯ pressure from all sides. Yet I had an excellent professor for my primary piano classes who inspired me to fall in love again with the piano and music. He taught me what it means to be an artist, how to project stage presence, and above all meaningful, diligent and deep knowledge of music and performance skills. My years in Germany were difficult, but at the same time very beautiful. After one year in Germany, where I received endless new knowledge, listened to multiple performances, and attended concerts by internationally acclaimed soloists, I was reveling in these new experiences, and making contacts with talented musicians from around the world. My horizons were expanding, and I was changing in my character and as a person.

Unexpectedly Blindsided

But then one day, while preparing and practicing for a concert the next day, my right arm suddenly became numb and lost all power. I tried to continue playing, but I could not. So I closed the piano and went home.

Within an hour, the pain began. I had been injured but had not yet realized it. The next day my professor announced my injury and said I would not be able to perform at the concert. Suddenly, the very reason why I had moved to Germany I could no longer fulfill. I went to a doctor who gave me a wrong diagnosis, as it later turned out. He sent me for physiotherapy, where they massaged me because my pain was too severe. Now what? I noticed my fellow students staring at me in class with my bandaged arm, as if I was finished.

Those days, I stayed alone in my rented room, knowing there was nothing I could do, and that I might never play piano again. The news was crushing. I spontaneously fell to my knees by my bed and gave my life to Jesus without thinking about it. This was the trigger that brought me back to Him after eight years. At that moment, I made a covenant with Him, without exact knowledge of what a covenant is, how it works or what it means. At the time, I was living in a student room above a church, but I had never stepped into the church. I started listening to worship songs online, and my tears could fill a river, I also listened to sermons. It was as if both the songs and the sermons knew exactly who I was, and were written for me personally. I couldn’t hold back my tears at home, on the train, on the tram, in the streets, anywhere. On Sunday, I went to church, and from the first worship song, I wept buckets. It was a calm church, open to the Holy Spirit, yet restrained, yet I was still crying a river. I already knew the pastor because of the room I was renting, and from that day on, we established a friendship that others envied. I spent much time with him and his wife. They treated me as if I was their son, and by their behavior they were showing me Christ.

Summer came and I returned to Greece. I began going for walks and jogging to help relax my arm, which I couldn’t feel from the shoulder down, as it was paralyzed. I knew that within a year I had to finish my studies, or the university would dismiss me. I was determined to return. I’d heard God is a healer and I wanted to meet him in that capacity.

Building Resilience

The pain slowly receded. But when I sat at the piano after a three-month absence, my arm went numb again. The challenge of awakening my arm again seemed hopeless, but I was determined to start a practice schedule that would gradually build up my strength and flexibility again. I discovered a model that increased practice time by 10 minutes a day for four days straight, followed by a one-day break. Then I’d add an additional 10 minutes for the next four days, followed by another break, and so forth. I repeated this cycle again and again until I could practice for five to six hours every day.

It took nine months for me to get back to normal. Soon I was taking lessons and giving concerts again, and could practice for hours. I was coming back fully, though with much effort, training, fasting and praying. I returned to Germany before those nine months of recovery were over, and while the next semester was in progress, I fully recovered.

Indeed, one year later I completed my Master’s degree, and was the only one who finished in the piano department with a straight ‘A’ that semester. Glory to God! I returned to Greece, where I got baptized in water, and later with the Holy Spirit. I continued my artistic activity, stayed vigorously active, returned to Germany to record my first CD, and gave recitals in various places and in Greece.

Darkness and Light

The time came for me to move back to Greece, as the project in Germany had been successfully fulfilled. In Greece, and specifically in my city, Thessaloniki, I had already performed at the most prestigious institutions, including the Thessaloniki Concert Hall, and Aristotle University before 2.000 people. But at one point, my options dried up, and I had no plans for the future, except my obligation to serve in the army for nine months.

In my spirit, I saw a big black cloud, as if my view had become limited. I had just come from an environment where art was at its peak, and I was performing seven concerts every two weeks. Yet now I had reached a hiatus where nothing was happening. This marked the beginning of what I call the “dark years.”

It started with dizziness. I couldn’t function normally for days at a time, and I had to lay down. At the same time, I was looking for a concert or opera hall to record my second CD. I visited these places in a dizzy haze, and nothing seemed to cut it. In Germany, I had become accustomed to the superior acoustics of concert and opera halls, and instruments of high quality. I searched from one place to another until I finally was offered a well-known concert hall as a free gift because of a misunderstanding that had occurred there at a previous concert I’d given. I was grateful until the day of the recording, when I tried out the piano. Its quality was subpar, especially for a recording. I realized my one full year of work would not bear fruit because the instrument was unable to meet my requirements and standards.

After an exhausting three days of work and many hours in the studio, I decided not to publish that CD for the market. At the same time, I became increasingly dizzy and foggy while practicing the piano. After a few hours, I would get brain fog and couldn’t continue, despite taking food supplements for “tired brains.” My cognitive fatigue began to dominate me, and to take over my entire body. I was performing before 300 to 500 people, or at private gatherings demonstrating pianos for sale, and my only thought was whether I could make it through the night.

After a while, even those opportunities dried up, and I was out of a job. By then, the fatigue was so intense that whenever I played piano, within minutes I was brain-fogged and had a headache that lasted for days. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was suffering from severe burnout. And so, I was forced to quit the piano. I spent my days laying down, trying to get myself together. Sometimes I went for walks to clear my head. Many emotions attacked me; confusion, discouragement, frustration, desperation and pessimism threw me into depression.

That time began six years of intense pain. Resistance and attacks made their presence active again, but this time, at maximum intensity. Depression had such a deep hold on me that it started manifesting in my physical body. It began with chest pains, as if an elephant was stepping on me, then frequent headaches, dizziness, or vertigo. Every day another part of my body ached, along with the previous pain, which was unceasing. Between the pain, panic attacks, anxiety, and identity crises, I could feel life seeping out of me. Yet I could do nothing about it. I went out with friends one day, and ended up at the hospital with high blood pressure, numbness in my arm and entire body, unable to breath, and feeling as if I was falling apart. Going to the hospital for endless tests became my norm for a few years.

During that time, our church had early morning prayer meetings for our jobs at 6 a.m. I was praying and fasting regularly. One morning, it was still dark outside as I drove to the prayer meeting, praying for my piano playing and my career. At that point, I didn’t know if God even wanted me to play piano any more, or if it had just been a choice I’d made at a young age that was only a personal desire. While driving, I heard an intense voice inside me saying, “I don’t want you there.” It really shook me. Spiritually, I was a 3-year-old baby, and I still didn’t know how to distinguish the voice of God from voice of the enemy, the “accuser of the brethren.” (See Revelation 12:10).

New Beginnings

In 2015, the Lord began working in me again. I started receiving spiritual visions where the Lord showed me either the future of something about to happen, or spiritual battles that already were taking place. He began speaking to me again and revealing His ways, His methods, and how He works. His was so different from the voice I previously had heard. That voice had upset me and brought fear. But now, as the Lord spoke, He always revealed a bright and positive future. From the beginning, He spoke to me from a place of love and warmth, without condemning my faults. Also, many guest pastors and preachers invited to our church by my father, who is also my pastor, began giving me prophecies and words of knowledge that spoke deeply within me. Most words were general, yet comforting.

The next few years, the Lord began giving me words during my personal conversations with Him, usually when I was in His house (at church). Most centered on my character, calling and ministry. Later, I started receiving visions about music.

He was building me from the ground up. He took me and lifted me up, He dressed me with a royal robe and He called me a priest and king. (See Rev. 1:5-6.) At first, this confused me, because my natural situation seemed the opposite of what He was saying. I now realize that I was interfacing between two fronts: One front was reality as I saw it; the other was the Word of the Lord.

Yet, despite my developing relationship with the Lord, depression was burrowing deeper inside me, and I was spending entire weeks lying down, unable to do anything. Doctors, medical exams, hospitals, and pain was my life. I sometimes looked at my hands, remembering how these fingers once played beautiful piano, but now everything was blurry, confused and overshadowed by dizziness.

Yet, by listening to many sermons and receiving much input from the Lord in my personal life, breakthrough and healing began. Only then was it revealed to me that I had gone through a severe form of depression. I was now happy, but the pain was still present. Two fronts, remember?

During the depths of depression, I had started drinking heavily, sometimes for months without stopping. It was calming me down, for I had become a high-functioning alcoholic, i.e., dependent on alcohol but still able to go about my daily routine.

Then the time came for me to go to the army. I served in a difficult unit in the tanks division. It surprised me that everybody was protesting about our remote location, how they treated us, and what we were going through, as I thought all that was nothing compared with the very real war going on inside me. The Lord was with me in the army and didn’t leave me, even when my mother endured a difficult tumor removal surgery and survived by God’s grace. I also found grace in the eyes of my commander, who placed me in the command headquarters, where I was given increasing responsibilities. I was around high-ranking officers, and I gained favor because of my character and hard work. They trusted me with demanding responsibilities. That didn’t make things easier, but it revealed the grace of God working in me.

While in the army, I often had to visit the hospital to be examined by doctors. At the military hospital in Athens, during a tomography scan to test for a tumor, the Lord gave me a Word and a vision of the spirits that troubled me and how to overcome them. That kept me stable for years to come. You see, there is no place, depth or height that you can go where the Lord will not find you. (See Psalm 42:11.) In the hardest periods of my life, the Lord has given me a vision or Word that spoke to my calling, music.

When I was discharged from the army and returned to civilian life, little did I know I was entering the next stage of psychological instability and disease. This round completely unstrung me. Along came allergies, more pain, digestive and intestinal problems, and more. I hadn’t quit drinking, and my addiction was getting more severe. I had problems in relationships with my parents, friends, acquaintances, and my romantic relationships. I started cutting people off. I became more quick-tempered, and often burst out with words that cut deeply, and provoked anger and pain for those around me.

I became so alienated that I could no longer handle it. At home, I removed all curtains and carpets because they were causing allergies, until just four bare walls were left ⎯ and they had been disinfected. I became paranoid. I would touch something dirty and shower immediately. I was at my worst, worse even than depression. I couldn’t keep promises or make appointments, as I was usually contorted by pain for days indoors.

I began to have hallucinations, seeing things that were not there, wondering if the people I talked with were real or my imagination, and if they were even there with me during the day. Without realizing it, I had symptoms of psychosis again, and was headed toward schizophrenia. I reached a point where I was contemplating suicide and didn’t want to live anymore.

It was at that moment that I knew I needed help. I asked my father to intervene, without telling him many details, and to ask for a referral from a doctor friend for me to see a psychiatrist. I didn’t know that God was orchestrating a meeting with a brilliant doctor, one of the best in the city, and very wise. The meeting was my first time in an environment with two psychiatrists asking me personal questions, yet at the same time respecting my privacy. The presiding doctor immediately understood a personal problem I hadn’t paid much attention to. I was impressed by his astuteness.

He then asked me if I realized that all my troubling thoughts were lies, and that was not who I really am. This impressed me, as it reminded me that the devil is a liar. After our conversation, he began treatment for psychosis. Psychosis! This was the first time I was told what my condition was. It shook me for days. I thought my depression had returned, but the doctor took a completely different stand. You see, as I sought comfort in reading the Bible and listening to sermons, I could not find a clear reference to psychosis or schizophrenia.

I had no idea where to turn. except to fall on my knees one more time and give my burden into the hands of the Lord. This was the only move that made sense to me, so I went home and assigned it to Him. This time, I clearly understood that it was impossible for me to get out of this on my own. BUT GOD: With Him nothing is impossible. He was right there with me in my room as I made my request for His help and healing.

The Time of Restoration

Song of Solomon 2:10-12

My beloved spoke, and said to me: “Rise up, my love, my fair one, And come away. 11 For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.12 The flowers appear on the earth. The time of singing has come, And the voice of the turtledove Is heard in our land.

A few months went by, and I started psychotherapy with an outstanding doctor who also was a pastor. By my second visit with the first doctor, and having continued with the medication, the difference was noticeable.

But above all, the Lord had done such deep work in me personally that I now simply needed a little help! During the course of my treatment with my first doctor, he explained to me over time that it ultimately became clear we were no longer dealing with psychosis, but rather with intense emotional confusion. That was his final conclusion. As Psalm 23:3a says, “He restores my soul.”

Otherwise, the medications wouldn’t have worked, because they were very mild. It was the Lord who removed my emotional and psychological burdens in just three months, all glory to Him! Every month, I was improving, and my therapy was going well, resulting in deep and radical changes. God was in charge as He guided the words and advice of the doctors. I recognized His hand working wonders in every session.

I started meeting every morning with the Lord at home in the secret place. I may not have had a “honeymoon” with Him at first, because I met Him in pain, but now I was meeting and communing with Him in glory. Every morning I talked to Him, and He talked to me. He started giving me visions and words about music and the piano again. He also asked me to start praying about music again, like I used to. Then He started speaking to me about my calling.

He gave me detailed images and visions from concerts, and He showed me things to come in the natural realm, as well as in the spiritual realm, the part I will play, and my abilities through Him. He was restoring anew my love for music, which was hard for me to accept at first; it took me a while. He revealed people I was about to meet, what they would say, what my position would be, situations meant to occur. He showed me how my performances would go, in which buildings, what would be discussed in concert hall offices.

A few years later, He revealed more about His purposes for my calling, abilities, and life. By now my heart was set free, I’d left behind all expectation of clapping and “bravos”, and was now focused on Him completely. All doubts that I was hearing His voice had vanished. Just as He said: “My sheep know my voice.” (John 10:27a), I now have certainty in His promises. No longer is it just about performing a concert, but rather how God will move, and what He wants to accomplish by that concert. Glory to God. It now finally had become clear to me why I had gone through so much all these years, and why the enemy tried so hard to destroy me, and His call on my life.

The calling was so strong, and the Lord so persistently on my heels, I had no other choice but to start playing the piano again. If the Lord had not pushed me to start, and if He had not spoken to me so clearly, I would never have played again.

Yet I still faced a mountain to climb. I’d been inactive for six years due to injuries from incompetent doctors and physiotherapists, who made my problems worse and caused more intense injuries, not only in in my left arm but in my right arm as well. Now the way forward was even harder than it had been in Germany.

It took more than three and a half years for me to fully recover with much struggle, pressing in, physical training and physiotherapy (thankfully with a good physiotherapist), but also with intense pain while playing. Despite these obstacles, every week I could lift more weight (to strengthen my arms) and added 10 minutes more each time I increased my playing time. There was a lot of sweat, concerns, prayer and fasting. Yet after so many bumps in the road, I made it only because the Lord had spoken!

In the meanwhile, I completed psychotherapy, I interrupted the medication, I was doing very well except that problem that the first doctor had found that needed an other kind of therapy, and a year later I went back to therapy, which I completed one year after. Again, the Lord healed me in a miraculous way that had his evidence all over and I stopped the medication once and for all.

Only afterward did I learn that most if not all people in this condition never fully recover, and they rely on medications for life. I thank God for the grace and victory He gave me by showing me the truth and power of His Word, and for His faithfulness to all who seek Him.

For the last few years I’ve been teaching students at different levels in conservatories, and privately preparing others for higher education. Many have succeeded in their goals, and others won competitions. I am traveling again to Europe and America to give concerts, as I step out upon His promises, and wait for open doors, and new opportunities and contacts. I believe, expect, and know in my heart that God is faithful, His promises are yes and amen, and I am certain I will to see everything He has promised me come forth and be fulfilled.

Overcoming Resistance to Your Calling

If you are suffering from a similar situation ⎯ struggling with emotional, mental or physical pain, or fighting addictions and abuses; if you grapple with depression, psychosis, or schizophrenia, or you’re thinking about taking your life: Wait! I know a healer God to introduce to you. Just as He stayed by my side every moment, and He never left me or forsook me, He will be by your side in the same way, no matter what you’re going through.

Seek Him and He will answer you. Ask Him to come into your heart as Savior and Lord and He will come running, without hesitation. He has nothing but love for you, unconditional love, without limitations, without terms or conditions. He is your Creator, your Redeemer, your Provider, He is the lover of your soul. He will not expose you, and will never betray you, but He will lift you up, He will give you a new name, He will show you how He sees you through His love. He will heal your heart, and set your feet on a firm and unshakable foundation. He will give you purpose, hope, and a glorious future, He will establish you, restore to you the work you’re called to, and your emotional and physical wellbeing. And He will present you holy. Let this day be a new day in your life, a day of hope and turnaround—the day you choose Him!

Amen.