Living in a Horror Flick

For those of you who don't believe in the supernatural, don't even continue reading. You live a blissfully ignorant life and will probably just think I'm crazy. For those of you who do, I have just one question. Have you ever had a supernatural experience?

When I ask this question, I typically get a story about an experience with God or His angels from people who believe in such things. What about a demonic supernatural experience? I find it odd that most people never experience this. I, unfortunately, have had a lot of experience with evil. Maybe it's because I am working in the church and am under more direct attack than the average joe? Yet that sounds and feels rather egotistical. Who knows why I'm "lucky" enough to be chosen.

Throughout the years, Satan has always targeted me in my dreams. Most of the time it's just a week of continual dreams pushing me on an issue I'm weak in, erroding my self-confidence or my sense of security. People have asked whether these dreams could just be my subconcious or from watching a scary movie the night before. Somehow, I just knew that it wasn't quite that simple. They were very attacking in nature and always involved topics that were not on my mind or subconcious. That was the horror of them. They would pull things out of the blue and hound me with them for an entire week, leaving me an emotional basketcase.

Since I started working at my church in August, Satan has stepped things up. At first my dreams only started getting more intense and frequent. Then around November, things changed. I started having horrifying dreams seeing demon faces and being attacked my demonic beings. Pure terror is the only way I can describe my month under attack. After only a week of this treatment, I was in a constant state of terror. I felt like demons were dogging my footsteps. It is very hard to describe, but every moment of every day I felt horror and terror about what I had seen and dread for the next night's demonic installment. It was downright debilitating. I know that God is stronger and that He will always win, but it is really hard to see Him when you're rivated by the horror all around you.

The most terrifying part was not the dreams, but the deep realization that my dreams were real. Christians know that the demonic realms exist in theory. In theory, I knew that Satan messed with me in my dreams. These dreams made me realize deep down that it is not just theory, that I am really at war against principalities of darkness. It's not just a motivational statement in the Bible, it's really true! That awareness is where most of my horror came from. It's like waking up one day to find out you've been deceived by your fairytale, inside-the-Matrix life and in all reality you are living in the middle of a horror film.

After having several people pray for freedom from my dreams and fears (they eventually got so bad that my own prayers were doing nothing), I had one final dream where I fought Satan. I have since been dream free for about two months. That's not the end of the story. Since that time, two other people (that I know of) on the church staff have started being attacked in their dreams. Each one is attacked at their weakest point. One of them is a counselor and has taken classes on spiritual warfare. In one of her classes, she was told that when demonic groups meet they start late at night and end around 2:30-3:00 a.m. At the end of their meetings they pray and send out demons to Christians. I have no idea how much stock to actually put in that, but I did find it interesting that all of us tend to wake up with these dreams about 2:30-3:00 every night. In fact, the last two nights I have woken up filled with anxiety right at 2:30. I spent last night praying for anyone at our church that might be being attacked. I know of several demonic cults in the area and one that has had conflict with our church. It almost makes me wonder if some group has our number. That is fanciful thinking, but what is not fanciful thinking is that Satan does has our number, is attacking us, and will ultimately lose.

Out of my entire internship, I think this experience has been the most helpful. It has given me a realistic idea of what a job in the ministry will entail. I wasn't expecting to lose my rose-colored glasses quite like this. I must admit that I am still gripped by fear that those dreams will come back. After a particularly productive day at church, I still go home dreading Satan's revenge. On Monday, I will be having a job interview with a small church plant. My career path is based on working in the church. This is not going to go away. I somehow must learn not to live in dread or fear and let Satan win.

I wonder what would happen if we Americans stopped living life blissfully ignorant of the supernatural around us? In most other countries, the supernatural is revered and a part of daily life. We Americans have put on blinders to anything outside of the scientific realm. I wonder what we would experience or discover if we looked the supernatural side of life in the face? However, do I want to go back to living with those blinders? Right now, desperately.

The Scary Future

I have been waiting for this email for two weeks and now that I have it I almost wish it had never come!

Let's back up. Two weeks ago I had a minor panic attack. I started looking into the future and realized that I needed a job and I needed it now. I have been desperately trying to find a way to work at home or do something I love. When I finally crunched the numbers I knew I couldn't wait any longer. The problem is that if I get a job I will (a) get a job I hate because that's all that's available, (b) be overwhelmed again by trying to work full-time and trying to fit 2 hours of travel time into my day since I live so far away, (c) fail again at our getting-out-of-debt plan as I won't have the time or energy it takes to make money saving meals, and worst (d) not have time for my part-time job at my church which is really what I want to do. In other words, my life would go back to hell-in-a-handbasket. However, I needed money and I needed insurance. I crunched the numbers and freaked out!

How in the world could God let me fall in love with my job, get hope of getting out of the sucky working world into what I'm meant to do, and now take it all away from me?! I was miserable before and going back felt like going before a firing squad. How could He?!

I tried everything to calm down. I quoted the memory verses and sermon notes to myself from the women's conference on anxiety that I had been to a week before. I re-lived all of the other times that God had come through for me. I asked God for exactly what I wanted and left it in His hands. And I still didn't believe. I got craigslist out and started seriously applying for crappy jobs. I even voiced my doubt to my encouraging mother on the phone and told her that reality was calling and I was answering.

Then I got slapped with another mother's-always-right moment (those are always painful). As soon as I got off the phone with her, I got an email about a church plant from my church that was looking not only for a music position that I could fill, but possibly a youth ministry position that my even more unhappy husband could fill. The work was part-time and the money took care of at least half of my weekly goals. Huh. Then I found out that my old part-time job at our city library, that I loved and have been trying to get back into, will hopefully be opening soon. That would take care of the other half of my paycheck and eventually benefits. Keep in mind, I love both of these jobs and not only do they work around each other, but will eventually keep me pretty much home with my kids. Huh again. Then I got home to my mail informing me that my Cobra dirt-cheap benefits were extended till next year taking care of my insurance problems for another 12 months. Huh, huh and huh. Now, He has never come through for me so dramatically before in less than 24 hours. Think He's trying to tell me something?

These last two weeks I've been in waiting mode. I never heard back from the church and the city job never opened. Somehow my husband and I have felt a neurotic peace about it. We still believed it had to happen. I mean, it felt like God slapped us in the face with each of them, so surely He actually meant to carry things through. Right? Funny, this time we felt peace with even more to lose. Our dreams were at stake.

Peace until this morning. I found out that the church has been trying to contact me, but had the wrong email address. They want to look into this. Now I'm freaking out. Freaking, freaking out! Dreams are a lot easier when they are just dreams.

Introduction

Finally, the promised introductory blog. I find myself at a loss as to what to write, but still strongly feel like my blog deserves a proper introduction. The theme of my blog is not only the story of my life, but the accomplishment of my goals. So let me tell you a little bit about my story and my goals.

As previously stated, I am 25 years old. I am a Christian. I am not religious, affiliated with any religious side, or anything else of the sort. I have a relationship with God. He gets me through every day and provides for my every legitimate need. You cannot understand me without understanding Him.

I have been married for two and a half years to my best friend. My husband is an extremely smart, loving man who I respect and adore. We are currently trying to put him through college while he works as assistant manager at an oil lube shop (our just-for-now job that turned into a long-term-works-with-school-schedule job). I was recently laid off from a job I hated, so I am enjoying living off the government for a while until I find the right vocational path. Right now it is just us and our adorable cat Tidus, but we are hoping to add more soon.

Another big part of me is that I am a musician. I am a singer, but also a closet pianist. I am an avid reader. Music and stories are the best avenue of communication for me. I am extremely easygoing, but have my obsessive compulsive moments. I went to a bible college and got a degree in music. That is where I've been. Now for where I want to go. Here's a list of my goals:

~ My life belongs to my God. I want to live it according to what He wants. I've already learned that my life is better when I follow His plan. However, I do have goals that I hope I will accomplish along the way.
~ My husband and I both want to work in ministry whether it's in a church or a para-church organization. We're especially interested in ministries including: music, drama, discipleship, children (me mainly), marriage, teens, and church planting. Basically everything.
~ Being a mom. I will state more on my views of this later, but being a good mom someday is very important to me.
~ Teaching. Someday, I want to teach. Probably just music classes, but something.
~ I want my job to be something I love and am called to do from now on. No more money-making jobs that make me miserable. Lofty and impractical, yes.
~ Become a good (at least functional) pianist.
~ Become fluent in Spanish.
~ Travel to Japan, S. Korea, Austria, Thailand, and India. I also want to go back to Australia and New Zealand with my husband. We've both been separately. Other countries are also welcome.
~ Take classes on conducting an orchestra and spend a lot of time doing so.
~ Buy a house.
~ Get a dog.
~ Teach private music lessons.

I think that's about as brief as I can be.

zzzzzzzz.........PUNCH!

Sooooooo tired. Too tired to come up with the promised introductory blog. I teach my church's kid's choir and today was auditions. Thankfully, not quite all of the 60+ K-5th graders tried out for a part, but by golly we probably had a 75% turn out. Sigh. Lots of whinny parents, unprepared kiddos, and no dinner. Add that to an hour and a half rehearsal of now beyond fidgity children and you get a big need for a strong drink and soft bed.

I was socked in the nose tonight. Or at least in the nose of my pride. Our 60+ kids individually are all wonderful angels, but combined become the most disrespectful, loud, unfocused, devils I have ever had the misfortune or privilage to work with. So this year, I decided that if I was in control I had better take control. I made an extensive set of rules with a super brutal list of corrections if those rules weren't followed. I even made the kids memorize them. Last week the kids were so terrified in the face of my strict punishments that they behaved like perfect angels. I went home, gave an evil laugh, patted myself on the back, and said "Grace, you are finally going to turn this choir around!" Heh. Heh. Heh. Punch. My dear co-director and I were close to murder by the end of the night. Scared of us, the kids are not. Sigh. Kind of defeats the purpose of a semester long four strike discipline plan if they get all four strikes in one night. I think I will hide under the covers until I have to emerge next week for the next round. We will see who wins. I might have scored the last two weeks, but tonight it felt like the monsters might have scored 10 points each.

Against my better judgement...

I am not a writer. I long ago lost all illusions about my writing skills. In fact, I am sure that I will find further humiliation in writing a blog. It really is my old roommate's fault. I have to admit, I've been having an itch to start blogging about something, anything. After reading her blog I became inspired. After confessing my inspiration and lack of confidence, I was encouraged to go for it. So blame her for your pain. I reserve all rights to be slow to post, stupid in words, and to eventually drop this blog business altogether. In fact, I'm going to be so contrary that I will wait at least a day to come up with a proper introductory blog. Alright, it's all a farce. I'm pathetically excited about this. :)