Spiritual Awakenings

Friday, September 26, 2008

This is going to be focused on my faith and my beliefs, so if you are uncomfortable with such personal topics, please skip this posting. In fact, this post is to glorify God more than it is to do anything else, so skip it now if you wish.

This entry is going to be more so a continuation from yesterday's fairly brief entry. I have wondered about posting an entry that is as personal as this one will be, but I shared the thought with some close friends in seeking their perspective and council and I think that the time is right to go ahead and share some of these thoughts with whoever wishes to read them.

Ever since I was a young boy, I have always felt that I have been very sensitive and aware of spiritual things; by no means am I elevating myself perspective, or am I claiming to be someone or something I am not, I'm simply stating that I have felt that most of my life that I could sense and I could see things that most other people, either didn't sense or see, or they showed no indication of their awareness to the same things that I was sensing and seeing. Of course, now that I think about what I just wrote, for most of those same relationships, I did not share with them what I was sensing so it's quite possible that others did have similar or same experiences as me, we just didn't know how to communicate it with one another.

Anyway, I cannot recall exactly what age I was when I was first confronted spiritually, but I think that it may have been somewhere between 9 and 12 years old. I had stayed up late one night wanting to hang out with my sister and her boyfriend and they were going to watch a movie that I wasn't sure that I wanted to see but I did want to be older than I was and I wanted to do older things that I was generally allowed to do, so it was a big deal to me to be able to stay up and watch a movie with them, even though I'm pretty sure they didn't want me to hang out with them at that point in time, and who can blame them? So now that I'm thinking about that actual timeframe when my sister had a boyfriend, I had to be older than 12, so I must've been in late junior high or early high school. Wow! I had been thinking that this had taken place when I was much younger, but it could not have.

Okay, so anyway, they were going to watch the movie “The Omen”, and I only watched part of the movie with them, because it really began to freak me out and scare me. While I was watching the movie, instead of showing fearful emotions and betraying how I was actually feeling, I chose to laugh instead of cry during most of the parts that scared me. Leaving them to finish the movie by themselves, I went in to my room, and ended up going to bed, more or less like any other night, other than I was a little bit later going to bed this time than I may have been at other points; I think it was a Friday night. If I remember correctly, I believe it was 2:02 a.m. that morning that I woke up, sitting up in bed, legs straight out in front of me, hands at my sides and I couldn't move (This was an entirely different type of paralysis than what I know and understand now; the paralysis then was clearly based in fear and was not based medicinally or chemically). I woke up and realized that I was sitting up straight and unable to move. In my head, almost audibly, I heard a voice that spoke angrily to me saying that I had laughed at him tonight and I didn't know what I was doing or who I was laughing at and who was I to laugh at him. This went on for what felt like an eternity. I would've thought that it went on for hours, but I don't think that it went on for more than a few minutes. I was very scared hearing what I was hearing and experiencing what I was experiencing and I then remembered a phrase that I had been told to say by a pastor who had extensive experience in spiritual warfare, but as I was attempting to say the phrase, the voice berated me and taunted me saying that I didn't have what it takes to say the phrase that I wouldn't be able to say the phrase and on and on. After finally being able to say the phrase, I found myself soaked in sweat and landing flat on my back on my bed, almost as if something had pushed me back down. I fell asleep almost immediately, and when I woke up the next morning, I recall seeing that my closet door was now open (it had been closed when I went to bed), my clothes were off their hangers in the closet (the hangers were still hanging on the rod, but the clothes were on the ground) and most all the models that I had made, car models, plane models and such from plastic, were no longer on their shelves but were on the floor and were broken. I don't think that I went to school that morning but I think that my mom took me to see that same pastor at our church so that I can share with him what had happened. After doing so, I definitely felt much better on the one hand, because I felt I knew what was going on and I felt I knew what had happened and why. I knew that he believed me and didn't think that I was some kind of whack job or that I was trying to get attention or something, which of course I was afraid that anybody would think if I were to share what had happened. I've shared this story with my wife and with some of my closest friends that believed what I believe and I felt safe and secure sharing that experience with them. I'm sharing it on the blog because I believe that the spiritual warfare, that happens every single minute of every single day and that I have been ignoring to some great extent and not paying much attention to, is now back on my home front, only now, I don't know that I'm as much the target as my children are (one has seen some things and been scared by them while the other has felt them at different points) and being the figurative head of the household, as well as a spiritual head of the household, it is my responsibility to take a stand, to wake up and put on the full armor of God and make a difference for me and my family and not allow my children to be victimized by one whose followers are skilled and experienced at victimizing, distracting, taunting, frightening and disrupting.

Pastor Chris and his wife Sheila came over yesterday while I was writing the blog entry and that is why the blog entry was short. When they arrived, I let them in and then went back to the computer and clicked on “Post” so that, at least those brief thoughts were able to get out and be seen. Chris and Sheila, led me in prayer; we prayed for our home, we prayed in every room of our home, we prayed at the four corners of the property of the home, we prayed as we walked around the house and I took forthright spiritual ownership of this home in the name of and under the authority of the blood of the Lamb of God. We asked for God's Holy Spirit to fill every nook and cranny of this building and we demanded, in Jesus name, that any spirit that would not be of God would leave and flee the home right then. We opened the back door and symbolically, in our prayers, demanded that anything that did not belong would leave through the back door and get out. We were together for nearly 2 hours during the bulk of which we were praying and Chris was reading Scripture. I was invigorated, encouraged, awakened, as well as exhausted by the time that we were done. Pastor Chris did share with me that when he came into the home and especially when he went upstairs, he felt a spiritual “heaviness” at the end of the house were Missy and Josh's rooms are and, hearing him say that, helped me to recognize that in the past number of weeks, I too had felt what I called a “thickness” in a spiritual sense, especially at night, and though it made me uneasy to an extent, I often just found myself dealing with it prayerfully and making sure that when I tucked Joshua in at night, in particular, that I would pray for protection for him as he slept and as he dreamt. I would pray the same for Missy as well, though she would share with me that she would say her own prayers when she was going to bed, whereas Joshua prefers that CC or I pray with him once he is in bed. I don't know how long it will last that he will want his mom and I to pray for him and pray with him when he's going to bed, but I'm hopeful that he'll want that as long as possible. Having that special time with your child is incredibly special and unique; unlike any other time that you could spend with your children. At one point, while we were praying in Missy's room, I heard my own words say that “…my body may be broken, but my spirit is not” and after I said those words, I felt something like a warm chill and I knew those words were significant. In realizing what I had just said, I felt strengthened to recognize and accept the physical brokenness that I am experiencing and my family is dealing with and loving me through, but that I would no longer associate my spiritual life directly with my physical life and that the time for sleeping and resting in a spiritual sense has been long gone, and it's time that I was awakened.

I am awake.

My intent is to have my son and daughter along with me and my wife, to walk the home in prayer as a family and to pray in each room as well and then to search ourselves and our belongings to determine what things we may have that could be spiritual “doorways” or “leaks” that can allow the unwanted to enter into our home. Sounds creepy I know, but I believe that we live in a world that is eternally tied and bound to the spiritual as well as the physical, and that it is a matter of awareness and gifting that allows us to see and be sensitive to what is happening around us, in us and through us and our actions in a heavenly sense. I don’t believe in ghosts but I do believe in angels and demons because Scripture says that they are real and because God has allowed me to see and hear some of the actions and personifications of both His army and the enemy. I’m not expecting folks to believe what I believe simply because of what I write or anything like that and I’m not trying to scare anyone or creep anyone out or convert anyone by sharing this one, specific encounter. I just feel it is time to share it and hope that it may be an encouragement to someone reading this who may have had some experience in their life that they may not have shared or thought about and may have felt that they were alone in their experience and were afraid people would think they were actually crazy if they were to tell their story. So there you go. Done.

There is more to all of this that I'm going to share at this point and, though I won't share it all on here, I'm willing to share it with those who want honestly to know and I can do that through e-mail, or even over the phone.