Same Old Demon Brand New Dance

Now the serpent was the most cunning animal that the Lord God had made. Gen. 3:1

I was abandon by my biological father at a young age, by the time I was four I had a new father, a step father a demon of a father.  He was a man who had struggled through the generational ties of abuse himself, and was to weak of a man to put them to an end.  He taught me to fear and fear was the reoccurring condition of  my heart and spirit until I was 13 years of age when he finally left.  Unfortunately for me these were the formidable years of my life the years where I  learned my patterns of behavior and how to process my thoughts. I learned to be sneaky.  I learned to never be vulnerable.  I learned that hatred kept me safe from my step father or other people who could harm me.  The most devastating habit I learned was to not trust anyone ever, especially not God.  Now I have to stop myself right here from shouting at the top of my lungs, “BUT GOD INTERVENED”, because that should be the title of my life, but this journal entry is about my demon and how I spot him and how God has intended him for my good.

When I was a Child I reasoned like a child,  1 Co. 13:11

Fear became my biggest demon and my anxious refuge in life.  I was now a young adult making decisions that would effect the rest of my life with the maturity level of an elementary aged child.  I started drinking, experimenting with drugs and boys. I was failing school, getting arrested going to Juvenile Hall.  I knew deep down in my guts that this was not what I was intended for but the demon fear was far to strong an enemy for me.  I ended up in boarding school, my new adoptive father had agreed to send me after I begged him to.  I knew that I had to make a change in my life and thought this kind of place would do it.  Enter in a new dance with the same old demon, the dance of relying on my own strength to keep the demon fear at bay.  I remember the Boarding School Principle calling us into assembly after our first week of school saying, “the reason you are here is to be saved!”  I panicked, to my knowledge I wasn’t saved yet I mean I was just trying to get over the fact that I signed up for a year away from my home town and family and no more cigarettes or drinks or boys…how was I supposed to work on getting saved.  That night in my dorm room I had a terrible nightmare and woke my roommate, she told me again that I needed to get saved, I told her I was so fearful, she told me that The Fear of the Lord was the beginning of knowledge. Prov. 1:7.  Completely confused and dumbfounded I repeated the sinners prayer that night and hurried up and got myself saved. I wanted to believe something miraculous had just happened to me but all the while I was thinking it could also be a bunch of B.S.

Salvation belongs to the Lord. Psalm 3:8

I had a certain kind of man made peace finishing my Senior year in Boarding School.  I passed all my classes with flying colors, made up my Junior year classes too.  I was on honor roll and I was The May Fest Queen 1994,(tiara and all people).  Student Most Changed by God was my title and did I mention I was also saved!  School was over I had graduated and lo and behold I had to reenter my old life, which came back hard at me with the force of fear I hadn’t encountered yet,the fear of failure.  I reentered my old life with a bang and an explosion of self destruction on a path headed towards death. To my shame it was not the death of me,  it was the death of my aborted child.  The demon fear and my unsavory flesh had landed me in bed with, get this, an abusive man and now I was pregnant with his child, the child he didn’t want.  Abandonment, rejection, death, fear.  Same Old Demon Brand New Dance. Why could I not be good and lovely and true, why was I always wrestling with this demon, my flesh and fear?  When would I be free?

For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. Romans 8:2

21 years of age found me in the same predicaments my earlier life had, the fear of being unloved and unwanted and making terrible choices based on those feelings,  I was shacked up and pregnant again.  The guy was different the dance was the same. Because of the tremendous blow to my soul my abortion had caused, I knew I could never, ever do that again and this guy wanted his baby, this guy wanted to get married and this guy wanted to be different than the generation that raised him.  We went to a small church and found a pastor that would marry us and I went into labor 3 weeks later.  Women will be preserved through the bearing of children. 1 Tim 2:15a. Never in my life have I been so scared as when I was giving birth, I remember laying on the operating table certain that when they cut me in half for my emergency c-section I would feel every part,  I knew I deserved to I knew I deserved to die and I told the nurse that I was having a heart attack, so could she please stop trying to cut me open!  She explained to me that I was having a panic attack and that I needed to calm down and I found myself in the most destitute spot I had ever been in, the letting go spot.  The jumping off point the point of surrender and I for the first time ever in my life threw up the white flag.  I had an internal conversation with myself and with my God, I completely acknowledged what God already knew, my life was completely His and He was in control.  I had a beautiful baby girl and she was my Ebeneezer stone of remembrance of a truly surrendered life.

You were running well who hindered you from obeying the truth? Gal 5:7

I was blessed with 2 more children and blessed to be able to raise them, to be with them for their childhood and to see them grow.  I was growing in faith and failing in faith and wrecking things and having victories. I was trying to raise them as christian kids and trying to raise myself.  I tried very hard to be honest with them and never fake. My husband and I tried to balance the Gospel of Christ with the world my kids had been born into.  We had no desire to raise fairy tale christian kids who have a cake walk life, sheltered from hardships, thinking the happiest place on earth is Disneyland! We knew life was rough they knew it was too. They knew on  whom to call on when they were in trouble, they knew whom all blessings came from. I thought I had prepared them for life, I was starting the process of letting them go…it was painful to watch and experience, God had brought me back to prayers of surrender and white flag moments and jumping off points and letting go…. and then death came to us all.  That mean old demon fear wanted to dance again, he wanted to dance with a vengeance he wanted to dance unto my destruction.

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?  Though she may forget I will never forget you!  Isaiah 49:15

When your child dies in the middle of the night cold, no phone reception, alone and crushed by blunt force trauma, you kinda start thinking what did I do wrong?  When people say things like what was he doing out late at night?  You start thinking what did I do wrong?  When you know he was wrestling with God and why life was so damn difficult,  you start thinking what did I do wrong? When you feel like God has abandoned you like every father before him you think what did I do so wrong?  When you read that God works all things out even the most terrible, horrible life altering things for my good and His glory, you still think did I do something wrong?  The answer is yes, you did something wrong, in fact you did many things wrong but you cant let the same old demon talk you into the finality of your wrongness. GOD IS BIGGER THAN MY WRONGS.  I do wrong, my children do wrong but we are not wrong. Fear comes to steal kill and destroy, to keep us from running the race to diminish our strong loud glorious voices that offer up breath upon breath of praise to a Glorious God, fear tells us we are wrong unworthy, wrong and unlovable,wrong and nonredeemable but the Truth sets us free from that dance and makes us free to surrender.  I have never doubted myself as much as I have these past 2 years and 2 months since my sons passing and  I wrestle daily with fear and doubt but I have also never believed in the sovereignty of God as much as I do today and I I have never trusted His grace so freely.  I rely on it and remind myself daily of it and have recognized the only way to out dance my demon is to surrender myself to the embrace of my Savior. Every day offers me a chance to dance, wrestle and surrender. Most days I surrender.