The Rest of the Battle

In my previous post, written several months ago, I discussed a battle that went on right next to me, I hesitate to say it was a battle between this thing and MYSELF, as it was quite one sided, I had the ultimate power in the universe fighting this battle for me, all I had to do was pray which is what I was TOLD to do.

Now as to the "message" I was given, I was to die that night. That didn't frighten me, I've been there and I know what to expect. As I was praying, praising God, I felt a pressure on my head, it began pushing me down, as if I was going through my pillow, through my bed, I continued praying, telling God I was ready to go if it was my time, I know I was being pushed out of my body.

Then I though about PB, laying in the bed, he would find my lifeless body the following morning, that part would be sad for sure, but I also had some unfinished business, some financial business, I didn't have a will drawn up, he could potentially be left out in the cold, I told God, if this was His will, I would submit, but if it was possible, I would like enough time to get my earthly affairs in order, then I would gladly go.

I heard the phrase "2 weeks" in my head and the pressure stopped. After that, I continued praying for a while, then went to sleep.

I was not trying to negotiate for more time just to stay alive longer, I truly wanted to get my earthly affairs put together, I had no idea how my demise would happen, but I was ready to go when it did.

I had a talk with my preacher about this, though I was completely at peace about it, I just wanted at least one person to know what was going on, I also needed someone to witness my will, I had another person in mind but wouldn't tell that person until later. I also wanted someone to help PB get through losing me, he would have a great change in his life and would need the help of caring friends to do what needed to be done.

A few days later, I sought the advice of a very connected (to God) Christian, he is very spiritual, I had a long talk with he and his wife, I knew I could get confirmation from him about what happened to me that night, if the confirmation was that I was going to die within the time specified, then so be it, but if the confirmation was in the negative about that, well I would just see what happened.

After much discussion and deep prayer, he and his wife both felt like this wasn't a message from God, but instead a "parting gift" from this evil entity, it was trying to scare me, most people when challenged by death are so afraid of dying that they will try to beg their way out of it, or perhaps it was a way to try to distract me or test my faith. Either way, I have to say that it had just the opposite effect on me, that next two weeks, I walked around on clouds, I was almost ecstatic,  I was going to be with my Jesus, my God, death held no fear for me, I was ready and willing to go.

The 2 week period passed uneventfully, I did get some important things taken care of that I had put off for far too long. That creature has not been back nor do I expect to see it again, but if it should show itself again, I have no doubt about the outcome.

Wretha

The Battle

A couple of nights ago, the shadow thing in the shower area appeared again, but before that happened, I was still up, working on my computer, I was thinking about going to bed, it was around midnight'ish, I usually take my MP3 player to bed with me, I usually listen to a Coast to Coast am downloaded podcast, this night I was "told"

"You need to pray."

It was emphatic yet matter of fact, it was not a request, it was a statement of what I needed to do, I fully believe that came directly from my Lord (the Christian God in case there is any question), I don't argue with that voice. I shut down my computer, I took my MP3 player and stuck it under my pillow, just in case it was a short prayer (grin), but didn't expect to turn it on that night.

I got in bed, turned to face the window that goes into the shower area and began to pray. My prayer started out simple enough, I asked for forgiveness of my sins, I thanked and praised God, then I said "here I am, what am I supposed to do?". I repeated that several times, being quiet and still between queries. That's when I began to see that shadow flitting around in the shower again.

It was the same thing I saw before http://thingsthatgobumpinthenights.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-night-shadow-creature-is-back.html 

 I began telling this thing that I wasn't afraid, and I began quoting Psalms 23, especially the part about "I will fear no evil, for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me",  and I truly had no fear, I began putting on the armor or God, praying the white light of protection around me and pleading the Blood of Jesus around me and against it.

This was a battle, but it felt like quite a one sided battle, it was not a struggle for me at all, I had the protection of my Father, this thing could do no harm, all it could do was leave, and eventually it did.

I have battled spiritual beings before, and it was a struggle, this time there was no struggle, none on my part, I just continued to pray until it was gone. I don't know how long that lasted, it could have been 10 minutes, it could have been an hour, time had no meaning right then.

Then I really went into praising my God, telling Him that He was my God, my Master, my Father, my Protector, I imagined kneeling at the feet of a King, giving my all to Him. That night I felt closer to my God than I have ever felt before.

There was more to the "message" I was given, but that part is private and I don't feel it's necessary to share it now, perhaps in the future I'll be able to, but for now, it was for me to hear.

I haven't seen that shadow creature since then, I have a feeling it's gone for good, but if it isn't, I know what to do. :)

I pray, but they are rarely formal-dry things quoted from memory, they are more like conversations, chats, praises, giving thanks, prayers are mostly started by myself, I think this is the first time a prayer session was "requested" of me like this, I must say, I rather like it :)

Wretha

The night shadow creature is back....

It's been a while since I've written, in my last post I talked about a new realization about some of the things that happened in my childhood, things I didn't understand, but now I have a new understanding about it. I am once again comfortable with everything, even the things that have changed.

One thing I had to come to a conclusion about was how this fits into my religious views, I hesitate to use the term religion because IMHO religion is how MAN screwed up our relationship with God, when I say MY religious views, I'm really saying my relationship with my Lord.

The conclusion I came to was it didn't matter what happened to me then, now or anything in between, I am still the same person, God is still God and nothing else matters or can change that.

So with that out of the way, I can continue with my journey. Things have been fairly quiet since writing last, I still see things on a daily basis, movements, sparks of light, shadows, the normal daily things, but still pretty quiet, until the last few weeks. I have been seeing extra things, one thing in particular is a flash of light inside the house, I know it's not just "in my head" because it happens in a particular space, between objects in my house, if it was just my eyes playing tricks, then it would be superimposed over my view obscuring everything.

I have seen this flash of light in a place where there are electronics, BUT the LED lights on this electronic item doesn't face toward the wall, it's over near my off grid power setup inside the house, the flash reflected off the wall, when I first saw it I was concerned that it could have something to do with the electronics there, then when I considered it, I knew there was no way there could be a light THERE, there just isn't a spot that could generate a light that would reflect off the wall in THAT SPOT. I have seen that a couple of times. I have no idea what it is or what it could mean.

The other thing that is new, well new in that I haven't seen this phenomena since I was a pre-teen, I used to see this nearly every night, it used to scare me a little, I think the purpose of seeing it was to try to scare me, eventually I quit being afraid of it, even getting mad at it and telling it that I wasn't afraid of it anymore, that's when it stopped happening on such a regular basis.

Now to explain what I saw, my bed is next to 2 windows, the window nearest my feet goes to the outdoors, the window closest to my head is the common wall between the bedroom and the shower. This shower area is large, like a good size walk in closet, there are 2 big windows in there that are on the outside wall, they stay open most of the time. The window between my bedroom and the bathroom has a plastic translucent sheet hanging on it, the idea is to give privacy to the person in the shower and still let light into the bedroom. This plastic sheet is attached at the top and the bottom so it can't billow around when the wind blows or when you go in or out of the shower.

The light in the shower gives off a tiny bit of light, even when the switch is in the off position, it's an issue with the wiring that we have deemed to be safe, a happy accident, we treat it like a night light. I can see the light from my bed through the plastic sheet.

Last night when I went to bed, it was actually early this morning (I am a night owl), I was facing the window, I could just faintly make out the glow of the light in shower, the wind was calm. I began seeing what looked like a shadow going back and forth in the shower area, it was quite active, it was as if there was a large bird flying back and forth, except if there had been a bird in there, as fast as the shadow was flitting back and forth, it WOULD have run into something or made some sort of noise, this was silent. I'd estimate the object I was seeing was perhaps a couple of feet in length, maybe a foot in width but with trailing black as if it had fabric that was flying out behind it, it was in the middle to upper part of the room.

I lay there, watching this movement, it was happening right in front of my face, no "corner of my eye" going on, it was constant, fast, erratic, it didn't scare me though, what made me realize it was a spiritual thing, or at least not of this world, was the fact that every now and again whatever thing dark shadowy thing was, it popped through the wall close to the ceiling, it would come in to my room, right over my bed, it would enter about a foot then flit back. It was mostly solid, but with a slight translucence to it.

I could also see the reflection in the glass of the door to my bedroom, there is a reflected light from the nightlight in the main room of the house. I could see a shadow moving around there too, but the main activity was going on just a couple of feet away from me, right in front of my face.

I watched this for a few minutes, then I closed my eyes to pray, I plead the Blood of Jesus on myself and I asked for the white light of protection around me, then I opened my eyes again, the shadow was still there, just as active as it had been, continuing to pop through the wall above the window into my room then shooting back.

I tried looking in different ways, following the shadow, then keeping my eyes on one spot as the shadow flashed back and forth. The best way I can describe it is, think of how it looks when you see reflected firelight from a candle or campfire, the light flickers and plays on the objects in the area, well if you were to make the light be dark, that's how it looked, it flickered, it flicked, it shot back and forth in the shower space. There was about a half moon last night, so there was a bit of light from outside, plus the tiny bit of light from the light fixture, this shadow was flying in front of that.

I finally fell asleep, I woke about an hour later, it was just before the sun was about to start coming up, still dark outside, I was still facing the window, the shadow was gone, the room looked perfectly normal, I looked hard and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

This didn't scare me, I wasn't concerned about going to sleep with it going on, I don't know what it was, I wonder if it will be back tonight when I go to bed, I'll look to see. I have no interest in communicating with whatever this thing is, I'm not sure if it's a spirit thing or an alien thing, I'm not sure if this was something that was just there and I happened to be able to see it, or if it was there specifically FOR me to see, I am leaning toward the latter.

The similarity of what I used to see as a kid, I would go to bed, the lights would be turned off, there was almost always enough light coming in from outside of the window, there must have been a streetlight out there. I could usually easily see what was in my room-the walls, the furniture, my toys... until this black shadow thing would arrive, sometimes it would be there as soon as the lights went out, sometimes it would appear long after the lights were out. This thing didn't have a shape, it was just big and dark, it would roll and boil, obscuring my vision, filling the room, causing me much fear and sometimes even terror, I would pray and pray, it would eventually go away. I also had nightmares about it. I don't know if this is the same thing or a similar thing, it just reminds me of it because of being dark and flitting around.

With this activity ramping up, I don't know what to think about it, it doesn't disturb me, it just IS.

Good Bye Daddy

Here I am, back and feeling better than ever. The last post I posted was about my dad, for those of you who read my other blog, you know that my dad passed away on July 30th, it was good, well as good as a death can be. Let me tell you about it.

Two days after writing my last post here that I had gotten back home, Sunday right after church, I received a phone call from my sister telling me that her hubby and their daughter were on their way to pick me up, I had 7 hours to get ready to go back to Fort Worth. I had been home for a week and one day.

I packed a bag, made some phone calls to let people out here know I would be gone for another little bit, and I waited for my brother in law and niece to arrive. They got here about midnight, I met them at the entrance to my neighborhood, kissed my hubby goodbye and started out on an overnight drive. We arrived in Fort Worth about 8ish in the morning, we went directly to the hospital. I went straight to my dad's room but was only able to stay less than a minute, the hospice people were there and wanted to talk to the family. Those few seconds I was in dad's room, I don't believe he even knew I was there, he had on a full face mask bi-pap machine, it assists in breathing. I couldn't see his face very clearly, and I was sure he couldn't see me, at least not enough to recognize me. He didn't respond at all to me walking in the room.

The hospice nurse told us that it would be next to impossible for us to take him home to die, something my dad wanted to do but had rejected the idea when we brought it up to him before, when he would have been healthy enough to make the trip back to his house. He balked at the idea of having hospice, I suppose it's not easy to accept the idea that one is about to die, he felt like he had more things to do.

We agreed that he would stay at the hospital and began calling family members and friends to come in and say goodbye. We knew he wouldn't see the end of the day. Within an hour or so, that room at the hospital, it was a cardiac ICU, was filled with people, friends, family, neighbors, it was amazing the number of people who showed up. Once the whole family was there (with the exception of 2 family members who were out of town), I told everyone to go outside into the hallway, I had each family member go into the room by themselves to say their final goodbyes. I am so thankful that we had the time and opportunity to do that. I didn't go in and talk to him alone, I had spent days and nights with him before and had already said everything that needed to be said in private.

As the day wore on, more and more people showed up, I am so thankful for the hospital, North Hills Hospital for allowing us to have so many people there, the room was full, we were spilling out into the hallway, and they never once said anything about having too many people there. I suppose they see a lot of people pass with no family or friends there. In fact, during the time I was there before, spending nights up there with dad, I had gone out into the hallway, it was dark and quiet. There had been a door to a room down the hall, there was a sign on the door that said "no visitors, see the nurse's desk", the room door was shut and no one went in or came out. Later that night, I saw the staff going into the room and quietly removing the patient, an older lady, they had her in a body bag, they had placed a hand made crocheted (granny squares) blanket over her, they quietly took her to an elevator that is for hospital staff only. I don't remember seeing anyone coming or going from that room, I wonder if she died alone...

Spending so much time in the hospital, I became very familiar with the routines and sounds of the hospital, and the spirit life there, and believe me, there is a lot of activity. A few hours before my dad passed, I was looking toward the door in the room. I saw a shadow figure go by very quickly, too quickly for a living person to have gone by, and less than a second later, another one, just like the first one flew by, I don't believe they had anything to do with my dad or that room, I believe I just happened to look up at the right time.

Being in the room while my dad was dying was quite an experience, I felt quite honored to be part of it, I talked to my dad nearly the whole time, we played gospel music, we sang, we prayed, we cried, we laughed, we told stories. Dad would respond from time to time, one thing he did was he hit his fist on the bed and said "I'm not ready!", even when you believe in an afterlife, it can be hard to face it, that final step can be a scary one.  I am convinced that he did pass on into Heaven though, about an hour before he breathed his last breath, he looked up toward the end of the bed and said "Hello Anita.", she was his oldest child, I had the honor of being by her side when she passed away some 5-6 years ago, we knew she was a saved Christian, I had been waiting for something like that to happen, I just didn't know who it would be, so when Dad acknowledged her, I felt comfortable that he was going to be OK.

Dad passed away later in the afternoon, he had been there long enough for the nurses, doctors and staff to get to know him, there were tears from them all, the nurses, the lady who cleaned his room, even his doctor there. That is part of the job, but it still doesn't make it any easier.

One of the things my dad and I discussed in the weeks before his death was if it was possible, he would come visit me, I do not actively seek it because I don't want to attract something else that might try to pretend to be my dad. I haven't had a visit from him, there was one dream I had where I thought it might have been him, but I feel quite certain by my response that it wasn't him, I'll talk about that in another post.

Lot's O' Stuff Going On

I have been meaning to write more here, don't ya just hate it when a blogger keeps saying that? So here I am. My spiritual life has been growing and growing.  I am getting more and more comfortable with myself and my spirituality at the same time. I had a few adjustments to make after my baptism, there were some small things were taken from me, at the time I had no idea what those would be, I just hoped it wouldn't be everything about my spiritual life, but was willing to give up any and all of it if that was necessary, I can truly thank God that it was not all taken, just tweaked to be even better.

My walk and talk with God has gotten better and better, closer and closer. I am participating in a Christian class at church, it's by John MacArthur, it's called Fundamentals of the Faith, I have enjoyed learning more and more, even if I don't agree with everything MacArthur says, especially about the spiritual gifts, he says some of them were only meant for the Bible days and aren't meant for today, I disagree, when God gives gifts, He doesn't take them back. I also know that we humans aren't going to agree with each other 100% of the time...

To update some of my spiritual experiences I have had recently, a month ago (+/-) I was in my Bug on the way to church in the afternoon, I was by myself, I live in a very rural area with mountainous dirt roads that are curvy and have lots of hills and valleys. There are places where the road is not wide enough for 2 vehicles to pass, it's a good idea to drive slow out here, sometimes I will think I'm going too fast only to look down and see I am going 15 mph. Anyhoo, I was going to the church, doing my normal speed on this particular part of the road, I was "told" to slow down, I didn't question it or even think about it, I just did it, I dropped my speed by about 5 mph, I began looking ahead to see why I had been instructed to slow down. I expected to see animals in the road (a common occurrence out here), maybe deer or feral donkeys, I was coming to a curve in the road when I saw the UPS truck coming the opposite direction, he was in the middle of the road coming around that curve, there was not enough room for both of us to be on that spot at the same time, if I hadn't slowed down, I would have been there at the same time as the UPS truck, would there have been a crash? I don't know, possibly a crash, possibly one or both of us might have ended up sliding off the road, I do know that it would have been at least a close call, not something I relish thinking about, much less experiencing...

I am still seeing into the spirit world, little sparks of light, the glowing orbs, the shadows and such.  For the most part, I just look and go on, I don't try to interact or communicate with whatever these things are. My neighbor's house had been pretty quiet the last few months, but things have been ramping back up, I have been seeing different things there, things like sparks of light near the ceiling. Yesterday, I was down there with my Dad, he had fallen asleep in the recliner, I laid down on the couch to catch a nap too, when I saw a large, shaggy looking shadow flying across the cabinet doors in the dining room, I have been seeing more and more activity in that part of the house. This only lasted a few seconds, but was significantly different from the other things I have seen there, it left an impression on my mind. I didn't say anything to my Dad about this though. So today, after church, we ate lunch at my neighbor's house, then my Dad laid back in the recliner and wanted to take a nap, I told him I was going up to my house, if he needed me, he could call me.

I had gotten up to my house (it's a bit of a hike up a mountain side to get to my house), I had enough time to get on the internet and check my email when my Dad called, he said he needed me back down there asap. When I got there, he was a little shaken up, he said he had not been asleep yet, but his eyes were closed, then something grabbed his foot. He opened his eyes and saw nothing, then he saw what he described at a large, dark tubular thing near the ceiling going toward the dining room. He rebuked it and it left him alone. Shortly after I got back down there, he told me that he saw something else, it looked like a small bird going toward the dining room, his dog also responded to this. It's strange that the sightings in that house had changed so much, I hadn't said anything to my Dad about this, yet he is also seeing these things too.

I have another 2 things to write about, I'll only tease you with them and say they are VERY GOOD THINGS, exciting things, somewhat scary too, but not in the spooky sense, scary because of the great potential and the responsibility that go with it. I'll write about them in the next few days.