Billa Kate Russell

A Spoken Testimony by Billa Russell

I never set out to become an embodied Christian, let alone a Christian Mentor. In fact that was the last thing I wanted for myself + I worked hard to move myself away from Christianity once I left my Childhood home, Christian faith was the furtherest thing that resembled me because, looking back now I was too far gone and too connected to the sinful nature within us to see clearly.

I never imagined I would one day stand and say, “Jesus is my Be all.” Let alone proudly.

It was July 2025. I was eight months into my sobriety journey. A fast that I have never broken, Cannabis, Tobacco, Alcohol, all at once. Quite a radical journey removing yourself from those recreational habits in a modern world. None of it was planned, I woke up one morning and simply said, “I’m no longer drinking and I’m no longer smoking cannabis or tobacco.”

I’ll never forget the look on my partner’s face, he laughed. Not out of mockery, but disbelief.
I wasn’t a heavy drinker, just a woman who enjoyed one or two at sunset, and, truthfully, I loved a spliff each evening to settle into art and ‘relaxation’. That was part of my rhythm, my release my “Mummy Medicine” the Sin that was ongoing and subtracting so much more from my life that I dared to recognise.

When I announced I was fasting from every recreational habit at once, even I, hardly recognised myself. I remember thinking, Who is this woman speaking? and How on earth am I going to do this? “what am I saying” It felt impossible. I mean, who gives up everything, all at once? No one I knew. Not in 2025, you’d have to be nuts to do that. It’s almost obscene to take on modern life + overstimulation sober.

But, from the very beginning, of my Sobriety Fast, I kept saying [ and still didn’t click ] someone upstairs is helping me. I could feel the support, the temptations removed, I could literally and tangibly FEEL the Holy Spirit holding my hand and renewing me, sheltering me from any temptation, I just didn’t know how to verbalise that, theirs no way that I could have done that alone. NO WAY. One thing that was always clear is someone or some energy was helping me. It was felt. It was as if an unseen hand was steering my choices. Making the choices and then removing all hurdles, lifting any temptation + craving. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t easy, but it also was too easy.

The other thing I vividly remember feeling [ and still didn't click ] is the pouring into sensation, like someone was filling me up with an energy that numbed me to temptation. It was like someone pouring a jug of love into your chest and you can feel it entering all limbs and filling you up like a glass of water fills from a tap.
I kept saying, “Someone upstairs is helping me.”

I didn’t realise then who that Someone was. I thought I was simply “healing,” or had matured haha and was “choosing a better life.” There was no rock-bottom moment, no collapse. No real decision to do this. There was no conversation with my partner that I intended to do this prior. I just woke up said it out of the blue, laughed at myself, i’m now 428 days into my fast from alcohol cannabis and tobacco, and 27 days into my fast of gluten and judgement. Now that I am learning more about conversion and christ, im learning every conversion begins with a fast, an initiation into the wilderness, into separation from what separates you from god, a pulling away of crutches.

I thought I was climbing higher. But the truth was: Heaven was coming down.

And now I know, with every fibre of my being, that Jesus is real and that he does have influence over our lives he can interrupt at any moment all I can say is be open I am the last person that wanted this and look at me. Looking back, their was so many in my face verifications that Jesus was with me all along, random acts that again I didn’t put 2 and 2 together. I share these in our Community Chat space.

I was a Buddhist, Taoist and Tantric teacher for 15 years
Nothing NOTHING on this earth compares, to the Holy Spirit moving within us, and the calibre of transformation it facilitates.

“If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come.” 2 Cor 5 : 17