By E.B. Hale
April 12, 2016~ I fought that night.
The fight was in the bedroom of my childhood home, in the bed that I’ve slept in since teenhood. I laid down on that bed at 12:03 a.m., reciting Psalm 4:8, fluffing my pillows, closing my eyes.
But then my attackers came. They came and I lost count of how many times they woke me up that night. Or did I even fall asleep? It was hard to tell. It was hard to tell anything, except for the overwhelming sense of evil that surrounded me every time I reopened my eyes.
Don’t ask me to put a label on it, but I lived with an hourly fear of all the unspeakable evils being performed that night- in my bedroom, out of it, who can really say… I will say that it made me sweat, it made me afraid. The whole night gave me moments of despair and hopelessness.
That’s some of what Satan did.
Now, here’s what God did…
Around the third time that I awoke, He put the words of ‘Jesus Loves Me’ in my mouth. Eyes opening, lips moving, it was one motion. And for a minute, maybe more, I would sing out to the shadows of my room. I would sing, until my eyes would close again and put me under; out of consciousness, where it was safe.
When I finally got up at 6:47 a.m.- exhausted- God showed my His glorious sunrise. He gave me that moment where a boiling red sun burst over the country horizon behind my house.
Then God took me for a walk through the fields, where I could feel that sun full on my face. With it, I felt love, security, trust and grace, beauty and control. The sense of victory came minutes later as I sang ‘How He Loves’, ‘Amazing Grace’, and ‘Shout to the Lord’. I used the words as the ammunition, the shield, the army to trample on any lingering effects of the night before.
I sought only to please God, to show Him that I knew where to turn when this sort of attack happened. That part being done, I returned home to make breakfast to the songs of salvation through Pandora. And the first to come on was Jeremy Camp’s ‘Walk By Faith’. I did a couple dance steps, right there in the kitchen!