Our battle is not against flesh and blood- it’s not against each other- our battle is spiritual, against the powers and principalities of the air. There is a constant battle going on between the heavenly and demonic. Spiritual warfare is real. There is always a fight to keep you on one side or the other. I experienced it this past month physically, mentally, and visibly.
The first weekend there, I was out in the pavilion talking to Karlie, and saw a black creature (half wolf like/ half man) walking on two legs, no face, in a white shirt walking towards us. I didn’t say anything to Karlie out of fear of scaring her, but prayed that he’d go away. Thankfully he did.
This reminded me of the verse that talks about the devil being a wolf disguised in sheeps clothing.
A few days later I was walking around the kitchen praying for the worship session I was about to lead and when I opened my eyes he was standing right in front of me. I said the name of Jesus, since his name alone holds the power that already overcame the enemy and conquered the grave, and because demons flee at jus the sound of his name. So of course, he fled again.
5 days later, I stayed up til 2 am in the kitchen alone working on a blog because I just needed some introvert time, and this was the only way I could be alone because the other 18 people were asleep. Then I heard someone go “psssst.” I jumped. I turned on my flashlight and looked around, shined it outside, but saw nothing. I then got very spooked and ran into the house (our kitchen is outside). I said Jesus name the whole way in to the house and locked the door very quickly behind me. I wasn’t spooked the other two times but this time I was. I wasn’t sure if it was a man or the demon I saw but I just prayed protection over myself.
The next morning I woke up with a severe back ache and neck ache. It felt like I had my back pack on (the big 40lb back pack) all day. Then toward the end of the day, when kids showed up for VBS, I was talking to two girls and then all of a sudden my vision went blurry. I got very light headed and dizzy. As time went on my head started pounding, so I went inside and laid down until dinner. I got up to eat, but ended up throwing everything up all night. The next morning I had the same symptoms and quite unfortunately had to stay home from ministry. Everyone that night went out to dinner for Becca’s birthday, but my noise and light sensitivity and pain in my head hurt so bad that I just stayed home. I laid on the floor by the door in front of the fan because it was 1003 degrees and that was the only way I could seem to cool down. But as I was laying there, I felt like someone approached me and I sensed as if someone was standing behind me. You know, that feeling when someone walks up behind you, you don’t have to turn around to see that they’re there, you can just feel their presence, that’s exactly what I felt. I prayed more and this time was scared. I felt vulnerable because I was alone, and felt like my prayers had failed since he kept coming back. Thankfully, about 5 minutes later my team showed back up at the house.
We had team time planned for when they got back, which is where we give feedback, announcements and talk about our day. We also sometimes give testimonies or talk about our day. Today during team time it hit me. I realized why I was feeling so bad and why I felt like I was carrying something on my back. I was being spiritually attacked. I then asked our squad leader to join us and was completely open with everything I had been dealing with/ seeing this past month, and I explained that I believed my sickness the last 48 hours was actually an attack. Then everyone prayed over me, and I literally felt 10lbs lighter. We then worshipped and as the night went on I increasingly got better and better. The next day I was significantly better, my body was just exhausted. By the next day, I was 100% better. I felt release and freedom.
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A week later, I got very sick again. Heard lies in my head, and I felt attacked. Emotionally, physically, mentally, relationally. I know the devil only attacks when he sees God’s people doing damage to hell, so I felt confident then in the work we were doing.. We sought out for our second ATL (ask the Lord) day, asking God to lead us to people we needed to see. I felt so sick but wasn’t going to let the devil stop me from being apart of God’s work so I trudged through. We walked and prayed and witnessed to people.
Then as we were deciding to walk towards Marla’s house or back toward our base my stomach pain climaxed and I was buckled over in pain, I felt as if I was being stabbed in the stomach (since the beginning of the day I felt led in the direction toward Marla’s so I knew going home wasn’t an option). My team prayed for me and I straightened up but told them I knew it wasn’t God’s plan for me to go home (which they would’ve had to go with me, so it wasn’t that God necessarily needed me, but I wasn’t going to let my sickness stop everyone), so we went on toward Marla’s.
We all felt the urge to stop (though no one said it out loud) at the house even though we knew none of the girls were home. Thankfully Marissa just acted and was the first to get up to the gate and call out to see if anyone was home, so one of the staff members came over. We then all, again without first talking to each other, felt the urge to pray over the place so we asked if we could and all went in.
I was lead straight toward the staff room, apart from everyone else, and everyone went to the other half and we just prayed. I did my round through the house and then stopped and sat on the couch bc I still felt sick and prayed there in the center of the house. One of the two staff members who were there came up to me and asked “did someone talk to you?” I thought she was questioning us being there because she wasn’t the one who had let us in. I replied, “No ma’am, but we have been here multiple times and just wanted to pray over this place because we weren’t sure if we would get to come back again before we leave tomorrow morning.” Hailey walked in at this time and the staff member then looked at both of us and said, “Can you go pray over the bathroom then before you’re done?” So we went back and prayed once more and met her again in the living room. She looked at me and said thank you, then preceded to tell me how she and the girls had been seeing things. She said the girls first told her and she thought they were making stories, but then she saw it for herself one night when she was in the bathroom and turned around and thought a girl was in there with her, but when she turned back around it was gone. She said they weren’t afraid because they have Jesus so they have nothing to fear but she was tired of it being there to taunt them. She then said, “This is why I ask if someone talked to you. I wasn’t sure if one of the girls shared that they were seeing things and that caused you to want to come and pray.” Around this time the others had made their way in and heard this and we all expressed that none of us had heard of this from any of the girls and explained we just felt the need to come pray, so we all agreed to go around the house once more to pray, and specifically cover the staff room and bathroom on either end of the house because Mrs. Ida said thats were the episodes were happening. As we left the house I no longer felt the stabbing pain in my stomach.
The moral of the story is, spiritual warfare is real, but there is power in Jesus’s name and power in prayer. The enemy stands NO chance against us since we have God our father on our side. His name is freedom. His name is power. He is our protection and even when we go through hard things he is there to help us. The devil and demons only attack when they see people- Christians- doing damage to hell, so he does what he can to stop and distract people from God.
I did not realize the correlation until the end of the month, but the day after I saw this demon (since every occurrence happened at night) I woke up severely sick. Throwing up/ headache/ stomach ache/ just aching everywhere. Parasites were going around camp so I always thought it was just a little bug (turns out it was caused by a little bug, but not the sickness type.)
This is a thing that could be scary to those who don’t understand their power or authority that they have as sons and daughters of the most high God who have been given ALL authority through the Holy Spirit. The same power that conquered the grave lives in me. The same power that already won the battle. I have access to it all. Yes, the devil can try to hurt me, test me, or distract me from God, but I know my God is greater and is watching out for me through it all and thus growing my faith in who he is.
