Closing The Door On Fear

society6.com

 That foggy feeling you get when you have been woken up from a deep sleep and you CAN'T fall back to sleep....yep its been that kind of morning..

A little before 6am, I was woken up with an earth shattering (OK maybe not earth shattering, but it was loud) thunder, followed closely by a bright light that lit up my bed room...displaying all the shadows on my wall.

Its amazing that even at 36-years-old, I can still get scared of shadows on my wall.

I laid there quietly (cause you know that "shadows" can hear you, right) trying to rationalize what I saw.

"It's just the bookcase standing in the corner....not some blood sucking creature that is lurking in my room waiting for my eyes to close so it can move closer"

"It's the clothes in the closet that are strangely looking like a group of ghost"

"That thing hiding and shaking under my blanket at the end of my feet is just my toy Yorkie....not a toe biting fiend"


Yes I know those are silly thoughts for me, a Christian, who does not believe in ghost, vampires and  any of the creepy, scary  things that Hollywood is famous for....but  those were my thoughts this morning...And as CRAZY as they sound...for a moment in time I felt scared...not just scared...terrified...Icy fingers on my spine, terrified.

I know that God is not a giver of fear..

 The Bible says in 2 Timothy 1:7  "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."


So my fear this morning was not of Him....it was from something and someone I LET into my house.


"Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat "(Oxford Dictionaries )

I was a syfy/supernatural/charmed/anything that was interesting kind of show type of girl....I loved  (past tense)watching things that would allow me to escape into an  alternate reality where anything was possible...there is nothing wrong with watching a good show, but when they go against everything you have been taught and believe in, that is when they become a problem.

I will not lie when I say I justified what I watched.

"there is no bad language or scenes in it"

"its just make believe, I KNOW the difference "

"its not a big deal, EVERYONE watches these types of shows"

The list could go on and on....and it did.

One night my daughter woke up SCREAMING....or at least I thought she was awake...Olivia was in the middle of a Night Terror and we couldn't wake her up from her dream.  And she continued to have one every night for a week.

we took her to the Doctor, who had us wake her up every night at 2 am,  to help her not get into too deep of a sleep. We were told never to wake her up, but to hold her, so she wouldn't hurt herself.

Nothing we did stopped her night terrors...she had them for months and she was waking up with dark circles under her eyes, and would need to rest throughout the day because she was so tired. thankfully she never remembered the night terrors. I hate to think about what type of dream she was having, that had her screaming and kicking :( it broke my heart.

My Pastors wife, told me that what we allow in our house, even though we don't let the children see it (Olivia was never in the room when I watched "my shows" because I didn't want to scare her), that there is still a spirit that comes in the house with it, and that we are the keepers of our home and it is our job to guard our homes and those inside it.

I had never thought about that....I was thinking that I was protecting her from it because  I wasn't allowing her to actually see/hear it.
  

pinterest.com

After months of night terrors, we did what we should have done first. We had her prayed for.
Our Pastor gave her his Bible to take home with her to put under her pillow at night. She has never had another night terror since.

I believe in the POWER of prayer, and I also believe that when God answers  a prayer you shouldn't take it for granted.

Because of that conversation with my Pastors wife, I began to look at what I allowed in to my home, my life and my family's life.

I wanted to make sure that I wasn't letting anything into my home that would affect my daughter.Anything that I thought would trigger a night terror was thrown out, even cartoons like scooby-doo were off limits, because I thought she would be scared by the "monsters".

We had always been strict on what we allowed her to watch, but now we took that same strictness into consideration each time we brought something into the house for us to watch.

I didn't want the spirit of fear in my home... Much less that it had been brought into my home by me....the person who was supposed to guard our home and make it a safe place.

I wanted to reflect Christ in everything I did...and what I was allowing in our home was not a reflection of God...it was a reflection of fear and the master of fear.

It has been a constant battle of "what if I just watched it once" or "maybe it wasn't that bad after all"

 But that type of thinking is why I MUST hold firm...I can't allow something that may hold my interest for a moment, but will leave a lasting impression in our lives, into my home and heart.

I was afraid this morning, laying in the dark room, whispering prayers that God "would take  away my fear."

commons.wikimedia.org

A FEAR that I brought on myself...something that I has seen years ago, was laying dormant in my subconscious, and this morning it was dusted off and came out of hiding to scare me.

This is why I see closing the "Door on Fear" as a HUGE responsibility. Something I take seriously. So when people ask me why I don't watch certain things, or wont allow my daughter to see certain "kids" shows, this is why. I am guarding our hearts and minds. I am not allowing something into my home that can take root and grow and morph into something else.

I am Closing the Door

:)