13 May 2008

The Continuation of Hell Week

This weekend, Shan and I were all geared up to celebrate our first "real" Mother's Day. I say "real" because Shan and I have walked together through two miscarriages, and although we never did get to meet our babies, they were still our babies. We are still their parents. So Eli makes our celebration all the more real, but we still look back on previous Mother's Days and recognize that we have been parents for a while now.

Anyway, in the continuation of our awful week last week, Shan came down with a nasty cold, and spent the whole weekend on the couch, trying to avoid much close contact with Eli. Who now has the sniffles anyway.

So she spent the weekend miserable and sick, and I spent the weekend trying to wish her and my son back into health.

The zoo trip on Saturday got cancelled, and the weather on Sunday cancelled everything else. Here's another awful thing: Because Shan was sick, and I had to watch Eli, Shan ended up going to the store (on Mother's Day), and then had to cook her own Mother's Day dinner (on Mother's Day).

I know, I know...I'm a horrible Dad and Husband. You'd think after five years I would have mastered the art of doing five things at once, and feeding my son and cooking dinner and taking care of a sick wife all at the same time. But no, I am not SuperDad.

We have rescheduled for this weekend. Which means I'll be the sick one.

Anyway, our weekend fell apart, just like the rest of the week did. On Friday, Shan asked me if I thought her getting sick was the Friday thing. Because something bad happened every day last week, and she started to feel sick on Friday. I said "Yep. Probably."

So then today, I watched Everything Is Spiritual, a DVD of a speaking tour my pastor did across the US. Incidentally, I find it rather comforting that when I hear my pastor teach, I can sometimes pick out what book he's talking about by what he's saying...at least someone reads the same kind of books I do!

Anyway, I'm watching this, and it hits me, as Pastor Rob is talking about the fact that humanity is unique in the fact that we have both a physical and a spiritual nature, that this spiritual nature allows us to be aware of the spiritual world. Pretty straight forward, I know.

But then I think, demons are spiritual creatures too. The Enemy does not have a physical presence. A point to ponder, as I re-examine this whole spiritual warfare thing. Why can I say, without a doubt, that humans are spiritual creatures, and believe it as sure as I believe that the earth is round, and yet be so skeptical of demonic powers?

Last night, I read a few pages farther in Wild at Heart. Eldredge was detailing how the Enemy attacks and works, upon men in particular, and upon people in general. He was telling the story of how his wife had dizzy spells for a number of years, and that how dizziness, and disorientation is related with demonic forces when concerning spiritual warfare. When they fought against the dizziness, it got worse for a time, then disappeared.

I felt like I got hit with a two by four when I read that.

Last Monday night, when I got home from work, Shan and I were "at odds". It was brutal. She was in the basement, ready to literally pull our cat's head off his body, cleaning poop off the floor. I came downstairs at just the wrong moment. I volunteered to take over, knowing that Shan had had a long day, and didn't need to be doing this right now. She needed to go to bed. But instead, it escalated. At one point, she asked me a question, and I replied, "I don't know." I grew up in a house where we thought about every possible answer before we answered. Shan grew up in a house where if you didn't have an answer right away, it was bad news for everyone.

Anyway, not to bore you with details, I went upstairs to cool off, and Shan went outside to cool off.

As I sat on my kitchen floor, wondering just what in the world had happened, the book spoke to me. Not in a literal way, but something of Eldredge's that I had just read smashed it's way into my mind, and I began to pray. I prayed that God would protect us, our home, our marriage, and our newly made covenant. I prayed that the Enemy would leave this house, and not come back. I prayed that the Enemy would leave our son alone, and leave us alone.

When I began to pray that, I got dizzy. Really dizzy, like I wasn't sure if I was leaning against the cupboards, or standing up, or laying down, or surfing. It was weird. And it was strong too. I've been dizzy before, and I've had a few dizzy spells, where you have to blink once or twice to convince yourself that you're okay, but not like this. Not this intense. I prayed through it, and it faded.

So now I have to keep going down this rabbit hole. I can't go back, because no victory is that easy. I haven't won, my family hasn't won. We need to continue this fight. I have spent a good long time not doing anything against the Enemy. But now I have suddenly found myself at the front lines, and I am coming to the realization that I have been there for a while, and just hadn't known it.


wingnut

1 comment:

Madeline said...

Tim and I are praying for you guys. I have a few books for you if you are interested. I just have to find time to drop them off.