Rated Real

Tonight's post is not going to be a show. It is not going to be fun. It will be heavy. So if heavy is not your thing, if talk of spirituality weirds you out, you can skip this one. Sometimes I skip this stuff. It's uncomfortable for me. Uncomfortable that other people think I think this way, which is extra incentive to write about something lighthearted, just to give people what they want. Cuz really, I'm a people pleaser. But I can't do that tonight. I would dishonor my soul and my God if I chose tonight to fish through my head for a humorous, crowd-pleaser and not talk about this weighty issue. You know, people don't mind so much talking about God, but talk about Satan and they think you're crazy. So think I'm crazy, but God/good is just as real as Satan/evil.

And if I don't address it I'll be denying it's existence and empowering it at the same time. So I'll face this problem, give it to God and let Him suffocate it. So here it goes, sans apology, sans cool.

I just interpreted, in one moment, the two nightmares I had this weekend, which weren't provoked by scary movies or books, fear or guilt. In both nightmares, someone broke into my apartment as I slept.

In the first, a black shadow burst through my bedroom door, approached me swiftly, violently. Seconds before he entered, I intuitively grabbed a gun and aimed it toward the door. When the figure arrived, I fired point blank, and though I hit him several times, I did not hurt him. The figure attacked me vigorously, in what way I do not know. Over and over, even after waking and falling back asleep, the nightmare repeated, beginning with the grabbing of the gun, then the opening of the door, then the gunfire, then the relentless attacks.

The second nightmare was one slow, long scene, a paralytic nightmare. (If you've never had one, it's like this: you think you're awake and your eyes are open, but you can't move; or you know you're dreaming, but you can't wake up. It may fluctuate, as this one did - I thought it was real and I could see, but I hoped it was a dream.) In this dream, my bedroom door was closed, and though I couldn't hear anything but a soft meow from Blitzcat, I knew someone was in the apartment. I struggled to open my eyes. I used all my will to open them halfway. Standing in the doorway was a man wearing jeans and a white t-shirt and white baseball cap. He stood there for awhile and watched me, like he knew I was struggling to move. I softly whimpered (I believe this was actually audible), a feeble attempt to cry out for help. He moved toward me, almost as if he were floating, slowly, methodically, always watching me, looking into my eyes. He slid on the bed, silently, like a snake, maneuvering toward my body. He took his left hand (the hand between him and the mattress) and brushed my cheek with his fingers. ....The touch startled me and jolted me awake.

Now, I'm usually one to either believe my nightmares are products of an underlying worries or something I saw or heard, usually on the media. I've thought that maybe they could've been spiritual attacks, but in the morning, that always seems like kind of a ridiculous idea. However, in this, looking around at some of my heavier, more confusing, circumstances in my life right now, and letting my mind accept certain possibilities, I believe that I saw in these nightmares a spiritual attack that I block in consciousness. I think demons are preying on me in my vulnerability. And as crazy as that sounds to some of you, whatever. I feel it in my gut.

So what to do? Well as soon as I finish writing this, I'm going to get on my knees and fight back. I'm going to pray that angels will stand guard over me while I sleep and empower me. I'm going to pray for clarity to see the attacks. I'm going to ask God to surround me with protection and guide me in consciousness and unconsciousness. With God, I will win this fight. With God there is boldness. And peace. All I have to do is cry out. So I will. I'll do this all week, through next weekend. And watch: I'll not have one nightmare. Because God honors those who call on His name.

In closing, I will jump down a rabbit hole: If you don't believe in demons or evil spirits or whatever, consider this: murder, rape, genocide, etc. are undeniably evil, we can all agree. So there is evil. If you think it comes from something outside the human body, then there must be an unseen force creating it. If you think it's produced by the human body, then you must agree that some of us are inhererently evil, making necessary some kind of salvation. I'm just sayin'.