Overcoming Fear and Claiming Victory


 Lately, I have been dealing with fear. This is a new thing for me. I mean yeah, I had the typical phobias; spiders, snakes, blood, the pitch dark, but nothing so crippling as what I have experienced since my move here.

Some of you are aware of the fact that I battled some very strange health issues in Oregon, and that for a period of time I had to give up my license and wear a heart monitor. For those of you who didn't know, well, you do now. Long story short, God used that experience to reveal to me that the physical symptoms I was experiencing were not at all related to a physical ailment, but were in fact a physical manifestation of my spiritual surroundings. It was God's way of shaking me up and opening my eyes.
Obviously, Texas is very different than Oregon, so the physical and spiritual environment is going to be different as well. Music sets me off now. I was sensitive to this in Oregon too, but not on the level that I am now. A group of my friends took Kristy and I to the Hard Rock Café back in August for our birthday weekend, and I literally had to get up and walk out of the restaurant. The music and the videos stirred something so ominous and wicked up in the atmosphere, and it was all I could do to avoid losing consciousness in front of my friends. I was literally holding my head in my hands and on the verge of tears in the middle of my birthday dinner.

Perhaps some of you are also familiar with my story of encountering a demon on my mission trip to Switzerland last year. For those of you who aren't, please feel free to read my post from August 13, 2012, titled, "Friday the 13th".
I had another, more intense experience on Monday night.
I got home from work on Monday, September 23rd feeling ridiculously exhausted. I started reading a book, and when Monica (my roommate) got home at around 6:30pm, I was already dozing off.  I finally decided that I would go into my room and take an hour snooze and then get up and get some things done. One hour turned in 15 hours. I was in a hallucinatory state the entire night, I felt off, yet I couldn't bring myself to wake up. I had a few kooky dreams, but nothing alarming. I have no idea what time it was, but at some point in the night, I woke up, rolled over onto my right side, and looked around the room. I remember looking out my window, realizing that it was dark outside and debating whether or not I should try to wake up. Suddenly, I realized that there was another body in the bed, laying directly behind me. I could feel the body heat and I could hear the heartbeat. I reached behind me and I could feel a solid mass, but when I turned to look at it, I could not see anything. It was as if my eyes stopped working altogether. The atmosphere suddenly changed, and I immediately became aware that I was in danger. I began to sit up in my bed, when I was pushed down by another entity , and the solid mass that was previously behind me, began to push itself down on top of me. The room was now pitch black, and I could not see anything at all. The air became dense and I had a hard time breathing. I immediately began to open my mouth to cry out the name of Jesus and rebuke it, but my mouth couldn't seem to form the words. The words came out broken and in a whisper. At this point I began to worry for my life. I tried shouting the words, and thinking them over and over in my mind, "Jesus, Jesus, In Jesus Name. I rebuke you, I rebuke you!".  I then began to back up out of my bed, in order to push whatever was behind me out of the bed. I backed up out of my bed into a standing position, when suddenly my vision was restored. The demons were gone, and my room was normal, yet here I was standing in the middle of my floor, saying "Jesus" over and over again at some ridiculous hour in the night. There is definitely power in the name of Jesus. No one can tell me otherwise. After this horrifying ordeal, I calmly jumped back into bed and resumed sleeping, because that's totally normal...

Little did I know, the enemy was aware that God would do something amazing the following night, and wanted to instill fear into my heart as if to stop me from doing God's will.
Tuesday night after Connect (youth group bible study), I went out to McDonald's with one of the girls to talk. We got to talking and she began to open up to me about some things going on in her life. I felt impressed to pray and I told her so. She looked at me and said, "Uh...okay, but right here in the McDonald's?". I said, "NO, I think we should go out into the parking lot".
So we did. We went out to the McDonald's parking lot and we began to pray. At first, not much was happening. Then we rose our hands, and God told me to open my mouth and that he would give me the words to minister to my friend. I turned to my friend and simply opened my mouth. God completely took over and began to quite LITERALLY speak through me. It was a night that neither of us girls will ever forget. Seriously, what a humbling experience. Also, I think it was great entertainment for the people picking up food from the drive thru that night.

Why I am I telling you all of this? I don't know. I just felt to. Honestly, it's too good not to share. Also, I am having to learn how to deal with spiritual intimidation and the fear of my own flesh. If we can just push past these fears and trust in God, he could really use us in a way that we never thought possible.
I'm not used to being attacked in this way, and I hate it. However, my God is so much bigger than that. He is not the author of fear, but the author of peace. I am learning how to claim victory over fear with the help of my creator.

On a much lighter note, I did face one of my biggest physical phobias on the 19th, when I allowed an examiner to take 2 vials of my blood. I didn't even pass out! How crazy is that?!?
Here I am, just learning every day and doing weird stuff I never would've done back home. It is what it is, homes.

*9 weeks and 2 days in, and I'm still loving Texas. Loving it more every day. Oregon, you may have some competition. *

Comments

Popular Posts