Spiritual Battle

    Earlier this week, my night terrors came back. I couldn't sleep more than an hour or two without having a nightmare that I struggled waking up from. On Friday night, I felt something different. I had just laid in bed and got an overwhelming feeling of fear. Like the sense you get right before someone breaks into your house. Yet, I knew no one was about to break in. I usually do not experience much fear... So, this incident stood out to me. I started playing an audio of Psalm 91 and fell right to sleep. The night terrors lasted for 5 days.

    The next day, I walked to church for Saturday morning prayer hour. On the way home, I found a baggie of drugs. At first, I picked it up because I realized it was not an empty bag. Then, in fear of my mind obsessing over it and returning. I ended up ripping the bag open and dumping it out. The rest of my walk home I just repeated saying, "The blood of Jesus". Later on, three times something happened I thought had never happened to me before. In the first incident, I was just falling asleep and I started to feel very hot and then felt extremely sick. The other two times, I was just about to fall asleep and an unexplainable feeling came upon me. It's almost like extreme energy or a fight-or-flight feeling. I have had a lot of night terrors in my life. But this happened before I fell asleep. Later, I remembered something similar happened to me for months after I died of a drug overdose at the beginning of the year. I would wake up and feel as if I were going to pass out... Like all life was going out of me. And a couple of times I did fall over. This had stopped once I had gotten saved. The night terrors had also stopped for a while. 

    I've been learning about befriending the Holy Spirit and building a connection with God all week. Almost every time I went on YouTube, a video would pop up with the topic of befriending the Holy Spirit. Since I got saved, I have had such a yearning for Christ. I have been praying for a couple of weeks now asking God to use my life totally for his will. My heart wants everything I do in life to be what he wants me to do. 

    I woke up this Sunday morning really struggling with showing up at church. Even though the night before, I wanted to hurry up and go to bed to be at church the next day. I wanted to go back to bed so bad. But I knew how I had been sleeping with the night terrors I would not of woken back up for church. By the time I got to church, I felt fine and did what was suggested of the videos I had watched, about befriending the Holy Spirit. I kneeled at the altar and prayed for the Holy Spirit to come into me and stay with me. About half way through Sunday school started, I felt a panic attack coming on. I walked outside and I started to cry. Once I made it back to church the service had started and I was not crying anymore. But once I sat down I could not hold back the tears. I felt an overwhelming pain, but in no specific place. I kept debating whether to stay or just walk back home. So, I texted my pastor and told her what I was feeling. She had me meet her in her office. By this point, I was hysterically crying, but had no idea why. 

    My pastor put anointing oil on her hands and started to pray on me. At that exact moment, I got the worst, sharpest pain in the base of my head. I've had migraines before, but this pain did not compare to even that. It seemed like forever before the pain went away. But she kept praying the blood of Jesus over me... As I worshipped him and gave him thanks for saving me when I didn't even know I wanted to be saved. It helped me a lot when she told me to think about the good things God had done for me while she prayed on me . 

    It took me a few minutes to compose myself, but I was finally able to enjoy the service. I truly feel I am still in a spiritual battle. My pastor said the devil does not want to let me go because he knows God has big plans for me. I feel it is because before I was saved I was helping influence many, many people in sinful ways. I am totally convinced, and God made it so obvious I was going through a spiritual battle. Because after my pastor prayed over me and the prayer line prayed for me... The night terrors stopped totally! If it had been sleep paralyze or something medical, I would have had to see a doctor and take medication before they went away. A spiritual battle is not only spiritually and emotionally possible, but physically possible. But after every painful battle, Jesus gave me a spiritual feeling that felt better than any feeling I ever felt from the world.