One morning in Malaysia I blacked out. I was looking through my clothes trying to decide what to wear and get ready for the day. I had been in a squatting position and stood up to move out of the way and the next thing I knew I could hear Rachael yelling, “wait wait wait don’t touch her” and I was on the floor. I thought at least 10 minutes had passed and that I was the only one in the room. BUT it had only been about 10 seconds. Racheal thought I was about to have a seizure and Julia (while in a back brace from a recent compression fracture) had positioned herself to try to catch me so I didn’t hit my head.
Now, I’m going to backtrack to Thailand. The place we lived in Thailand was just a short walk away from the red light district. All month long my squad and I were attacked in our dreams. We had dreams of old relationships, lust, and where even woken with downright fear in the middle of the night.
This trickled into the first few nights for my team and I into Malaysia. The night before I blacked out I slept horribly and had awful dreams. And that morning while I was getting ready, I was telling Rachael about my dreams. She was asking me really intentional questions and was trying to help me get to the bottom of it and allow myself to feel grace and the next thing I know I’m flat on the ground.
I’ve always heard that the devil attacks more the more you are trying to grow the Kingdom of God, but I don’t think I really understood what that meant. Stepping back and listing all of the things that have happened to my squad mates and I this past year is ridiculous. But also I guess really cool before that means the devil isn’t happy with what we’re doing…?
The stronger your relationship with God and The Holy Spirit the more the devil is going to try to break you down. It truthfully pisses me off that a friend was trying to help me feel grace in a situation I continue to struggle with and the only way to stop that was to have me black out.
I’m not discouraged by this though. I’m annoyed. And motivated. I want to fight harder for the Kingdom of God. Harder than I’ve ever fought before. And I want people to know that the devil is the thing behind bad things happening and the thing that makes us live in a joyless world.
So let’s pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, step out of the victim circle, and bring Heaven to earth.
“Get behind me Satan, you’re a frick!”
-Rachael Thearin
Love,
Banana
