Spiritual Warfare

I was in the woods. There were dark skeleton trees surrounding me. The sun peeking through the branches even seemed dim. And there was something up there... in the trees...

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)
So many things have happened since Thanksgiving and I wish I could say they were all good. Actually something pretty bad happened to some of my family recently. Not my immediate, hubby and kids, family. I can't tell you who it is and I can't tell you what it was, until it's all sorted out, but it's very much not good.

Before that, we had a brush with identitiy theft, but God caused my hubby to check his bank account almost as soon as the charges were made and despite the bank doing their best to make a nightmare of it, we were not out any money and the inconveniences from the whole thing are fairly minor in retrospect. I do hope they catch the selfish individual who did it. This person went online and ordered a ton of expensive novelty items from a goth store called Hot Topic. I pray that even if the police never catch this thief, that they will be overwhelmed with guilt until they repent and find something more honorable to do with their time and talents.
And before that we were all sick at some point or another for about 2 months. Some of us... *ahem* Some of us were sick for a week once, and some of us were sick for the whole 2 months.

And I had a dream that I was in the woods. The trees were naked and still and the dim sun peeking through the branches didn't warm the atmosphere. There was something up there. Something in the trees. Some sort of larger predatory bird. Many of them, sitting up in the trees, camoflaged, waiting. Waiting to swoop down and pick at the weak. At the first sign of weakness. Just waiting for a chance...

And that's when I knew that all these things that were happeneing were not coincidence. We were under spiritual attack. Some of my family, not my immediate family, still is. But when I had that dream it prompted me to get back on track in my prayer and Bible reading. I've spent nearly an hour every morning reading and praying lately, and I'm ashamed to say that's the most I've ever spent in my life on a regular basis with God. I was close to God as a small child, and by the time I had the self-government to have a specific time with God, I was a struggling teenager wrapped up in my struggles instead of dedicating time to God. I've come to be closer to Him again only since having kids and those of you who are mamas of only littles know that it's hard to get longer than 20 seconds without interruption to do anything. Many of us don't even get to go to the bathroom alone. My usual Bible readings were as many verses as I could get in on the internet before the next kid crisis, and short one liner prayers throughout the day, and finally I would try to pray as I lay exhausted in bed at night and wind up falling asleep a sentence or two into it. But as I determined to have this Sweet Hour Of Prayer every morning, God has allowed the teething (and usually crying) baby, to either sleep in late, or be happy in the Jumperoo while I read. The toddlers make it very difficult but as long as I get after them consistently, it is doable. I fill cups, change Bug's diaper, and bring them breakfast in bed. Then I set the timer for an hour and put it up on their shelf and they are allowed to get out of bed to get a toy to take back to bed, but they must stay, eat, and play on their beds until the timer dings. I make sure that they know this is because Mommy needs some special time with Jesus every morning, and because they know I'm doing this, they often beg me to read the Bible to them after the timer dings and they are allowed to get up.

If you feel that you or your family is under spiritual attack, I strongly encourage you to start or reinstate your own Sweet Hour Of Prayer! Perhaps if you already pray in the morning alone, you may wish to add a Bible and prayer time in the afternoon with your kids or before bed with your husband. Perhaps a prayer group online or with some other couple or some of your close friends. You will have to pray that God will help you to set this time aside for Him, and that He will show you what hour in your day is the one that you will have the least distrtactions. If you are not sure what to read or pray or where to start, I suggest that you just start at the beginning of the New Testament and read a chapter, slowly, letting it sink in, before beginning to pray. Thank God for His provision, for His love, for whatever you hold dear, and then cast all your burdens on Him and let go of them, in faith that He will work everything out for good to those who love Him. A chapter a day and if you feel you have more to glean from it, you can read the same chapter several days in a row until you feel that it has sunk in enough to move on to the next. When you have finished the New Testament, start over, this time at the beginning of Genesis, and you will be amazed how much more meaning the OT has when you are looking at it and thinking "So THAT's why/where/who/what/when..." after reading the NT. If you are having trouble knowing what or how to pray, I recommend purchasing one or more "Powere of a Praying ___" books by Stormie Omartian. I have The Power of a Praying Wife and The Power of a Praying Parent and I use one of the prayers in each as a springboard for my prayers for my family every day. I have gone through both of them several times over and will continue to do so as they are very good ways to launch a prayer for a specific person for a specific need in their life. A great couple's devotional is Night Light by James and Shirley Dobson- don't let the seeming simplisticness of the early questions throw you. It gets deep fast and some of the discussion questions are HARD to actually talk about!

2010 Rewind PART 2 ~Thanksgiving and the Aftermath of Loss~

Warning: this post is a bit of a downer. With creepy dreams thrown in too. Mostly I just journalled this stuff to try to figure out later.

Thanksgiving, just a week after Nana went Home to Heaven, was weird. It was bittersweet for those of us missing her. In a good way it was nice because it brought us all together when it would otherwise have been a divided family affair spent each with out little respective families acrost the country. My mother's sisters came, one from the other end of the country and one from several hours away. We decided to forego Thanksgiving as usual with my husband's family in order to be with my family at this difficult time also. It was really nice to see everyone but it still felt empty. My mom and her sisters and brother decided to go ahead and have it at Nana's house- now my uncle's house. It had already been planned for Nana's and she had the meal planned out and groceries bought so they went ahead and had it there just as she would have wanted. But it was insanely difficult to visit and walk around Nana's home and know she was not there and I would never see her again this side of Heaven. I won't get a chance to tell her I love her again, or to ask her about her childhood again, or to see my kids grow up knowing and loving her and her calling them "fweetie" like she did me when I was little.

Not long after my grandpop's death last year I dreamt that I was in their house with Nana and I could see the spirit of my grandpop walking down the hall. I saw him several times walk down the hall and each time he got younger and younger until he was the grandpop I remember from when I was little. I told Nana in the dream, that he was waiting for her. She said through her tears, "I can't I just can't think of that now... not yet. I have to be where I'm at." I turned from Nana and walked down the hall again and then turned around to walk back to the kitchen, and there was grandpop walking toward me and he had something in his arms and he was beaming, just radiant, joy coming off him. I saw a tiny head of dark hair and he was smiling into the tiny face and I knew it was a baby girl. As he got closer I tried to look at the baby's face to see who she was but I did not recognize her. From the side she looked like my own daughter but when I saw her face I knew she was not. Grandpop walked through me and vanished. That was the last time I dreamt of him. I thought the baby might be Carrie- his daughter that was his secondborn after my uncle: she died when she was a newborn. The joy on his face as he looked at that baby in his arms was so overwhelming that it made me cry. I woke up sobbing but feeling comforted.
After Nana's passing I did not have such a comforting dream. First there was a plague of insects coming out from under the bed and pouring out of an old dirty dilapidated car and everything was in dark dingy colors like everything was old and dirty. I was strangely unconcerned about the insects. I thought we should do something about them, and I thought they were icky, but I would stomp them and go on about my day without being disrupted or deterred. Then the colors were back and I was running through the corridors of a hospital. It was like a maze and everything was this burnt orange color. I had to get to Nana to say goodbye. My husband was with me. We finally found her. The room was dark with a fuzzy candlelight quality. In the room was my grandpop's body on the bed, and Nana was sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed but not too close, but she looked dead. When I got close to her, I saw that she was there but not registering anything. I knelt in front of her and started to cry. She suddenly focused on me for one second with crystal clarity. Her eyes lit up and she said lovingly with delight, "My little Jessie!" and then she died. Then both bodies were gone and one of my aunts looked at my mom, other aunt, and uncle, and said, "Okay well what now?" and everyone picked up their things to leave except Uncle Bob who stayed in his chair. I wanted to scream, "How can you just move on like that?! What do you do with the pain?!" but I held my tongue. Then I woke up.