“Trust ME to redeem your whole story.” Something I heard the Lord tell me while fasting in China, month 2 of my race. In that moment He was redeeming me from an eating disorder that clouded my thoughts for about a decade.
This time He has redeemed something else.
During my first 2 weeks here in India I had major difficulties sleeping at night. I would go to sleep around midnight and get woken up at 3 am. I'd lay there paralyzed with fear, feeling like I was not alone until 5 am. I felt like I was being watched, my skin felt attentive to what was behind/ in front of it and the combination of the two made it nearly impossible to fall asleep.
“So, what are you freaking out about?” You might be asking.
The 2nd night we were here I woke up to a totem pole looking mask on the wall. It was was glowing with a hint of green and red light. It was in the upper corner of the room looking at me. I hid my face and cried out to Jesus. I looked back and it was facing to the right as though it was laughing to its buddy. I prayed, “God take this away.” And it disappeared for good.
The next morning my co-leader/teammate/friend asked me how I slept. Not wanting to sound like I was complaining, I said, “pretty good. Similar to the night before, but not that bad.” Then I returned the question. She started to tell me about a mask she saw, and as she was explaining tears started to rush to my eyes. I looked back at her and said, “I saw the very same one. Did it look like a totem pole carving?” She nodded in agreement.
So that day we anointed the house with oil, over every door frame and window ceil, we prayed for the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to be with us, fill the place and send guardian angels to protect us (praying over a living space is what we do anytime we are going to sleep in a space, not knowing what resided there in a spiritual sense before we arrived). That night before bed I played worship music in every room and danced, praying for God's spirit to fill this place.
I went to bed feeling refreshed and free, but around 3 am I woke up again and saw a dark shadow in the corner of the room. I got agitated. (I prayed against this stuff.) I prayed and it went away. I however stayed up again until 5 am.
In the morning Renee told me that she saw a dark shadow in the same corner. At this point we were starting to think, 'what is going on???' We shared the issue with our contact. He said that seeing things at night was pretty normal for India and that he sees stuff in the night all the time (India's other name is “the land of 1 million gods.”) I told him, “That is not ok to us. How can we fix this?”
I believe that the power of the resurrection defeated all darkness and crushed the head of the enemy/devil if you will, so I was not ok with letting this become the norm in my living space. So… every night I went to war with prayer & scripture.
“regarding His Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead; Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 1:3&4
Our 14th morning I got woken up again at 3:30 am and stayed up praying and listening to worship music until 5:30 when the sun came up (something I grew accustom to on a regular basis). This morning was different. At 5:30 as the sun rose, I got pissed (sorry for the curse word, but it really explains where I was in the moment). I got angry that I had started putting my faith in the sunlight. I cried out to God- “If I can't sleep in the dark then I don't want to sleep at all!” I got up and went to the window by our dining table and started speaking out- “I hate India, I don't know why I wanted to come so bad. (That is not how I feel. That was me after no sleep for 14 days, and said out of a state of emotion). They don't believe You exist. (At this point the muslim call to prayer is shouting over the intercoms) The sun is coming up like it does everyday because You are faithful. Its the one thing that everyone can rely on and its from You and know one can see that. (I was obviously deep in my emotion at that point) I just want to sleep! I want freedom from this evil presence that wakes me up every night. Why can't I sleep? Why are you not answering my prayers for protection? Where are you? Are you even here?” It was not a pretty seen, as you can imagine. Anyway after an hour and a half of ranting I passed out on the couch. It was like The Lord was saying…'babe, just go to bed.' A response much sweeter than what I was expecting. I really was waiting for His hand of judgement or a similar talk. But He didn't. He loved me so much and just gave me rest for the day.
That following day I was pretty fragile. I was emotionally and physically spent. I went about my day, still fuming from my morning rant. I tried to put it behind me to come across normal, but it was like a bad fight with my closest loved one. People could just tell.
That night I stayed in while my teammates Renee & Steven went out for dinner.
I felt it was important to spend the time with Jesus, since my last moments with Him were giving Him a piece of my mind. Which was quite small to Him, but huge to me.
So I sat down, ready to open my devotional when I heard the Lord tell me to talk to Him first. Another surprise. You want to talk to me? Do you remember last time? So I started with a bunch of questions-
“Why is this happening? I thought prayer worked? I thought praying the blood of Your Son, the passover lamb over this place would block all this junk.”
I was getting real with my thoughts and emotions. It was then that I heard the Lord say to me, “You don't trust me. You don't trust me to protect you while you sleep. Where is your faith?”
Oops! Yeah, He got it. I was praying and doing all these rituals without trust which made me no different than a pagan.
I had trusted Him in many areas (diet- eating whatever street food sounds yummy;physical body- walking between buildings by myself when needed; future- what jobs are ahead, marital status, where to live), but not my physical body when I sleep. I had a weird fear that one of these things would touch me while I was sleeping and be able to do something to me. The L-rd reminded me, “Haven't you noticed that every time I allow you to see something its at least 15 ft from your bed? I show you before it gets near you, so you can tell it to leave & acknowledge that I will take care of it.” I also asked Him, ”Where are you? Why haven't you shown up?” He told me, “I am living inside of you, which is another reason why you have nothing to fear. That covering that you have been praying for is in every way a part of you, which is another reason why those things can't hurt you. Now trust Me! You will have rest.”
As much as I thought I was walking in faith, I realized that I was putting way too much focus on the problem/darkness/fear instead of G-d's GRANDNESS and the fact that He DOES have power over this stuff. And that the spirits in this country have zero power.
I started to think where this fear started. And God reminded me of the time that I saw a ghost in our house. He told me, “That was the night that you decided not to trust Me.” I repented and decided that night to start believing that God DOES have the power.
I went to sleep 70% trusting the Lord that night(I know not that awesome, but at that point was much better than the 10% I was trusting Him with the two weeks before).
I woke up twice but for only a few minutes. I remember myself thinking that there might be something there, but I remembered to trust Him and that meant not checking my clock, because doing so would probably confirm that it was the same time, which would then lead me into a whole list of worries that I didn't need to go over.
Instead under my breath I said, “It doesn't matter. Forget all of you all (referring to anything that might not be of Jesus and the Lord's kingdom). You suck. Deal with my King. I'm going to sleep.” And I fell right back to sleep.
It was glorious. The next morning I woke up feeling like- “I DID IT!” I woke up with such a heart of thanksgiving. It was a blessing. The Lord was right (Of course)! All I needed was a little trust.
Since that night at least a week has passed and God has continued to be faithful. My trust percentage has continually gone up and I now sleep through the night. He's got it and has come through on every single one of His promises that He spoke to me that night.
Its interesting to me that in the two most intense countries on my two routes where Christianity is not fully welcomed (1st China and now India), the Lord has used these places to speak to and heal my heart from past wounds.
I continue to believe and look forward to more of His promise- “Trust Me to redeem your whole story.”
