I have seen darkness since I was a very young child. I will go as far as to say that without a doubt I have seen demons, or evidence of demonic warfare, over people and places. Even before becoming a Christian, I encountered this other realm. They were the things that haunted me every night at bedtime as a child in the house where I grew up and now as an adult, no longer haunt me, but are still visible to the eyes God has gifted me to see them with.
If Hell is the absence of God then I stand corrected in saying the home I grew up in was hell. Because I believe without a doubt that God has been with me every step of my journey, whether I was able to see it then or not. So if not hell, then it's safe to say the home I grew up in was a hot bed of spiritual warfare in which every second felt like Evil was the winning team.
In my childhood home, the two bedrooms I grew up in were at the far front corner of the house. A long corridor and lots of house away from the things I needed, like my parents. There is not a day I can remember walking down the hallways to those bedrooms and feeling safe, at peace, or loved. If we had glasses we could slip on and see the spiritual realm, then what it felt like might look like dozens of demons grabbing my legs, laughing at me, mocking me, and spooking me, with every panicked run into my room. I would slam the door, breathing heavy, and finally feel SAFE. As a child, I had no idea the nightmares and the fear were caused by something I could not see. Now, I know.
Once I grew older and we added a member (my little sister) to the family, I rotated to the farthest bedroom on the end of that scary hall. It was here I would have my first demonic encounters. The first came in a dream where I was trying to get out of the house. I can't remember the cause of it but for whatever reason we had to get out, and my only mission was to save my little sister. (The violent fighting carried over into my new stepfamily and I knew that no body would be concerned enough about her to save her but me.) So in my dream I packed a bag and ran out of my room several feet to hers. And what stopped me in the doorway was unlike anything I have ever seen. A demon, whose eyes shown red like the deepest of rubies yet empty of anything beautiful. The figure was black and the head, warped and making un-humanlike motion. The "wings"/arms or what have you, were blocking the doorway so that I could not get in to save her. The figure opened its' mouth to scream at me-the scream was dead silent but the noise scared me to the depths of my soul awakening me out of the nightmare.
My second encounter in the farthest back bedroom was during an illness. I had a cold or cough, or something-and I was having trouble sleeping for days. My stepmother gave me some medicine and after a few days I was better, and finishing up the medicine as instructed by the doctor. I remember thinking, this particular night that I took it, that I should not finish the bottle, but I did. In the middle of the night I was visited by a head ache so bad I literally thought I would die. Even at 11 years old I knew that I was not supposed to be in this much pain. However, I was frozen. I could not call for help. I could not even move-my whole body was absolutely paralyzed-EXCEPT....my right arm. With eyes wide open, unable to move, I grabbed the pen and paper on my nightstand and started scribbling in the dark my last "I love you's" and goodbye's to my family-because I was certain I would not live til in the morning. The pain grew more and more intense and in the midst of scribbling my notes I saw a swarm of black figures in the corners of my room. Flying and swarming like wasps. They did not come close to my body lying in bed that I could see anyway, but they were ALL over my room.
My other 2 vivid experiences with demons came much later in life. One was an experience when I lived alone at 19 in the...well...not the best neighborhood in town. It was winter and a storm was coming. The house I lived in was OLD and CREEPY...and COLD! So cold in fact that I rarely left the living room where the heat was contained. I had no cable but was obsessed with Grey's Anatomy DVD's at the time so I was watching one of those, about eleven or midnight. When I heard a knock on my door. I looked outside through my peephole on the front door, and saw a black woman with ratty clothes and torn bandanna. Staring at her but a split second her face warped, much like the figure in my room as a child, and again the spinning of the head and silent screaming that scared me to the depths of my soul. I jumped back from the door in fear then back up to the peephole to see if she was still there, and there wasn't a soul around. I called my sister who drove from her nearby apartment to aid me and said after driving around the neighborhood there was no trace of this person.
The last one I will mention was in a bar in Fayeteville. I was a BRAND new Christian and visiting my sister who lived there for a few weeks. We were there to see some friends of hers in a band playing at this particular bar. I knew right off the bat, just walking in, that I wasn't supposed to be there. After moving from my uncomfortable seat at a table to the even more uncomfortable place standing with other on-lookers at the front of the stage, was when I saw it. Coming off the face of a guy who had just spilled his beer all over me, and drunkenly starts yelling at me for getting in HIS way and poof. His regular drunk guy face warped into two, with the same black hole of a mouth and silent screaming like the others. Without hesitation I ran out of the bar as FAST as humanly possible.
So why do I tell you all of these stories? And where does the title of this blog come into play? I will tell you. When we seek, we find God. When we are hungry, He presents himself to us more and more and more. Because He is always TRYING to communicate with us, but most of the time we do not hear or accept it because of our own things going on in life. So after this conversation over dinner with my friend Lindsey, I guess in my deepest most honest part of my heart, I wanted to see the good-not just the bad. The 'of God' and not just the 'of the Enemy'. So in the midst of a nightly prayer to God, my heart cried this innocent prayer. "I want to see the good, too."
I did not think about it after that. It wasn't pre-planned or anything, or much I have ever dwelt on before. I did not think about it even all the next day. Until 5pm.
I was driving to church, taking the backroads from my city to the one where I attend corporate worship. On a two lane road driving say, North, there was a group of motorcycles coming my direction. My first thought was "those boys better move over" (because one of the 3 was across the center line). It did not occur to me in that instant that 2 of the 3 had wings :)
Not only wings but were transparent in this beautifully clear way. I saw the outline of a motorcycle body and wings and the rest was just a blur. The wings though were SO long and huge trailing behind the two figures. It was only when the human guy on his motorcycle passed me, COMPLETELY ALONE, did I realize what I just saw. I put the pieces together and gasped, "Oh my goodness...did I just see two angels??"
I believed it to be true in my deepest heart of hearts. So regardless what you think or what I questioned or any logic, I cried out "BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD!" over and over and over while texting my fellow warriors to let them know what just happened!!
Continuing my drive a few minutes later is when I realized that God had answered my prayer from the night before. A prayer that my brain did not ask for yet my heart longed to see. He did it. He is good, and He is faithful!! And apparently, Angels ride HARLEY'S!! haha Isn't that funny? Even as they passed me on the road I felt the angels getting such a kick out of being chosen to protect this man and by doing so they were having just a grand ole time riding on bikes behind him.
God is GOOD. God is FAITHFUL. GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS. Do not be afraid to go deeper with Him. He is calling us to do so! Will you answer the call??
In Him,
Meg
