About a year and a half ago I started having these nightmares (around the time I was saved). The nightmares were terrifying and left a heavy feeling in my gut all the time. I only had these nightmares when I slept in my room alone. Every. Single. Time. It got so bad, at 17 years old, I would crawl into bed with my mom because I couldn’t go back to sleep. I even made my friend Lydia stay the night at my house for a literal 3 months, because I was tired of waking up in the middle of the night terrified out of my mind. But like I said, it only happened when I was in my room sleeping alone (plus a few other rare exceptions). In a way, I was excited to leave for the race because that would mean 9 whole months without worrying about my nightmares.
Flash forward to the race, I was at dinner and I was telling some of the boys on my squad about the nightmares that I have back at home. For the first time, they made me realize that the dreams were actually spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare is just a fancy phrase for evil messing with you. That freaked me out because to be honest I still don’t understand it completely. It’s something i’m very much just now learning about.
That night I had another nightmare, a really bad one. I remember being awake for 3 hours just sitting in complete terror before I fell back asleep. This happened three more nights and every single time I would wake up at 3:05. That fourth night I finally said something to my team. I really did NOT want to, it felt childish and stupid. But they didn’t take it that way, they were really good at making me feel seen and heard. I told them about how I woke up at exactly 3:05 every time because I simply just thought it was creepy.
My teammates read into it more than I did, my team thought it meant something. We brain-stormed many ideas, then one of my teammates asked if it could be a bible verse. That got me thinking. If it’s a bible verse, what book? I realized that since training camp SO many people have been praying Psalm verses over me, like an absurd amount. Out of a gut feeling I said it could be Psalms, so I went and got my bible. I opened it to Psalms 3:5 and my jaw just dropped.
“I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.”
Psalms 3:5 NIV
Okay let’s be real. WHAT? The Lord was frustrating me because He wasn’t taking the nightmares away. Meanwhile the whole time Abba was trying to teach me He was always there, I just didn’t see Him. I haven’t had a nightmare since. Sometimes I randomly wake up at 3:05 and just have an overwhelming peace and comfort wave over me.
Sweet reminder: look for the Lord in the little things and never think he isn’t pursuing you. ABBA IS THERE!!! If you are having a hard time hearing from him, find a community you can bring it to. I promise they will point things out you would’ve accidentally missed.
