|
PART ONE
They say you can’t choose your neighbors and indeed, if I could have, I would never have wanted the Thomas family to enter our life. Yet, it was an experience that taught me a very important lesson, one I never acted upon again. It took a near death reality of the powers of darkness, and the consequences, when you don’t have the calling of the Holy Spirit. It was a fool’s partaking, and I paid the price.
Not long after The Exorcism of 1987 ordeal, the house next store had sold. We never knew the neighbors, they were an elderly couple. We wondered who our new neighbors would be. Several months later we saw the moving trucks pull into their driveway and we got excited when they were a young couple with a girl a little older than my daughter – who was seven by then - and a boy a little younger. The two girls spent most of their time together, whereas the boy was kind of shy and timid ... but the little girl was full of life. Terry and I got to know to each other over occasional coffee in the mornings, mostly in her kitchen. She didn’t like to take Davie out, and it took awhile before I learned why that was.
One day, as we sat chatting at her kitchen table, she confided in me some frightening things about her son. She told me her little girl, Sally, was from her first marriage, and Davie was actually her stepson. They hadn’t been married for very long, and it wasn’t until then that his real mother entered the picture. Her husband had told Terry about his boy’s mother belonging to a witch’s coven in Salem, Oregon. Salem was where they had moved from, only a couple of hours drive away. One day, unexpectedly, Davie’s mother showed up to their home insisting to see her son. Terry knew she had been denied custody and visitation rights, and so she refused to let the mother in because Jeff was at work. The woman left upset, and what followed were court documents she filed for visitation rights.
Terry was very upset and worried sick for the boy after his mother sought visitation. She said Jeff wasn’t concerned, thinking there was no way she could win. When I told her about what my daughter had gone through, and how I got to know the District Attorney very well, I offered to see if I could help. Perhaps the DA could help my neighbor in a legal way, so I called the DA and made an appointment to see her. It was good seeing her again, and she was very happy that my daughter was doing so well. I never did tell her about the exorcism experience we went through, although she once told me she felt the man who did what he did was evil. Well, after a nice little visit I told her why I had come. After explaining the situation she told me not to get involved because there was nothing her, nor I, could do for them. She said, 'Your life is going good now, keep it that way'.
When I told Terry the DA said there was nothing she could do to help, Terry was sickened that they had no way to protect the boy. To their shock, the mother won and the first time he went to stay with her for a weekend visit, Terry was worried. She said every time he came home thereafter, he would act strange. She said sometimes she felt like his mother’s spirit was in the house. She couldn’t describe it, she just said at times she felt someone was watching her. At the time I didn't want to get involved so I just listened. I didn’t ask any questions about the woman, and Terry didn’t tell me much more. I had never seen her so I had no idea what she looked like, and I didn’t feel moved to take it deeper. The DA’s words kept running through my mind - I kept my distance from that situation.
During the year they lived there nothing really happened that was alarming that would cause any concern, other than Terry said the boy was becoming more withdrawn since his visits to his mothers, but she said he wouldn’t talk to them about anything after those visits. It sounded like he was oppressed, but I didn’t tell her that, although she may have suspected it after I shared the story of what my daughter went through ... though, I had made it clear that I never wanted to go through that again. Perhaps that is why she didn’t speak of those things very often.
I couldn’t believe it when Terry told me they were selling the house, and soon a For Sale sign showed up in their front yard. She told me that the feeling of someone watching her got creepy and she thought the house had a ghost, though her real thought was, it was the boy’s mother. She thought moving would resolve the eerie and uncomfortable feeling. I wasn’t sad to see them leave. I was a bit relieved, to be honest. When they bought their new home, I went to visit. My daughter was very happy to see Sally and they ran upstairs to her bedroom. Davie never did come downstairs. Terry and I sat in the kitchen having coffee and a nice chat. She seemed more relaxed than she was before, saying things felt clean there, and so far no issues with the boy. I was so happy to hear the news.
It had been a month since I had talked to her, then one morning she called sounding very upset, her voice shaky. She asked if I would come over, almost begging me. The kids were all in school so I got ready and went there, finding her a nervous wreck. She said they felt sick after Davie came home from his last visit. It was the first time he opened up and told them what happens on those visits. He described going to a place in the forest where he sat in a circle with other kids. In the middle of the circle the mom’s wore black robes and danced, singing songs, then one kid would be chosen to enter the circle, where they would be lifted up as a gift to the Great Spirit. He said it was kind of fun, because afterward they all got to play, but it was spooky sometimes. It sounded to me like an offering and the more Terry spoke, the more I felt I should try and help. It felt so close to what we had experienced, the boy being too scared to tell because his mother warned him not to – just like my little girl having been told the same thing from her legal father. Terry said he was so frightened after he had been chosen, that when he returned home after that weekend, he hid in his room, afraid to come out.
Terry admitted that moving didn’t solve the feeling she had about his mother’s spirit being in their house. She said at first she didn’t sense her spirit, but then it started coming again. Terry said she had mostly felt it in the kitchen, but in Davie’s room she felt it strongest. She was sure there was something in his room, something his mother gave him, as she was always sending stuff home with him, toys and clothes and such. She looked into my eyes pleading me to just check it out and see if I felt anything in the house, especially Davie’s bedroom. I was hesitant to do so, but I couldn’t deny her request.
Against my own knowing, and the advice to not to get involved, I went ahead with it, and it was one the most devastating decisions I had ever made.
While Terry stayed in the kitchen I walked around the entire downstairs, feeling nothing, then headed up the stairs. When I got to the top of the stairs I started down the hall to his bedroom. When I approached the doorway, I saw the large jumping horse that once sat in their living room next store. When I went to enter the room I felt the same force I had felt before. A pressure trying to push me back. Even at that point I didn’t feel the Holy Spirit’s presence, but I continued to ignore it and went in. I walked past the horse and slowly wandered around the room, looking at all his things, touching and picking up items, trying to see if I felt anything. By the time I got around the room and was standing next to the horse, I felt an intense pressure pushing and pulling against me … like a strong, angry and powerful breath radiating from the horse.
I stood there a moment, praying out loud, asking for the blessing to anoint me with protection of the Holy Spirit, but I heard nothing, I felt nothing. I thought for a moment, then decided I would lay hands on it and pray over it. I had no intention whatsoever to try and cast out any demons. My reasoning was to check it out and inform Terry if I felt anything strange, so she could decide to remove it. I suppose I was thinking that was all I could really do, and the only thing I felt was strange ... was that horse. I knew I had not been called forth to do anything more, and truthfully, I hadn’t even been called to do anything. The only call I had was from a friend in need.
The moment I laid my hand on the horse, a mighty grip grabbed my hand and I was unable to pull it off. I know my heart got a raise from that, and I knew I had to immediately start rebuking and demanding in the name of Jesus Christ that it release me. In that moment I felt the Holy Spirit pour into my being, and the words were no longer words, they became weapons. For several minutes that battle raged on, and then the force broke, and my hand was free.
I was in a bit of a daze, but I felt whatever was possessing that horse was still there. I was well aware of demon’s attachment to material objects. I was fully aware of that, yet, I had never experienced anything like the force possessing that horse. What happened was so powerful it did scare me, though I could not show fear. As I left the room, I felt so thankful for that rescue. I felt so foolish, as if I thought I could do something like that by myself. But the true lesson hadn’t yet been fully realized.
I went down stairs and told Terry what happened. She was shocked, telling me that the boy’s mother had got that for him the Christmas before they moved. I told her she needed to remove it from her home, get it out as quick as she can. I told her I didn't feel anything else in the house except that jumping horse, letting her know that was the doorway for his mother.
After I left, as I was driving home, about ten minutes down the road, I suddenly felt that presence appear in the back seat. I say the back seat because it was as if it were breathing down my back, the same hard breathing I felt in the horse. I could feel the anger of its blazing energy sending a chilling sensation. It only lasted a minute or two and disappeared. I knew it was letting me know that I had stepped into something that someone didn't want me involved in. I was greatly disturbed by that.
When I got home I immediately called Terry to tell her what happened, magnifying the importance of her getting that horse out of the house, off the property, gone, asap. She said she had to wait until Jeff got home, and it would be taken care of immediately.
That night I had a dream, an unbelievable, devastating and seriously critical dream that nearly killed me.
PART TWO
It was 1989 when I got involved with the Thomas family. I had spent the last year writing my first book, it had already been a challenging year - the subject regarding Christmas was not warmly welcomed. It was finally in the last stages getting edited at the publisher - all that needed to be done before print was to review the redlines. Up until that point, life was on course. Then, I met Terry.
That night, around eleven o’clock, I turned the word processor off and checked on the girls … both were sleeping peacefully. My husband was sound asleep, had been for hours … that 3:00am alarm clock wasn’t too far off. I crawled into bed and fell asleep.
It had been two years since I had a dream, and that night, it was more like a nightmare. In the dream I was standing at my youngest daughter’s school auditorium, holding her hand. People were coming in and the seats were filing up, so I quickly found two chairs and we sat down. A few minutes later my daughter told me she had to go to the bathroom, and since the school play hadn’t started yet, I took off our coats and set them on the chairs, so no would take them.
When we returned, I saw the back of a woman’s head with auburn-red hair sitting in my chair. When we got closer, I saw a little boy sitting next to her, his head hanging down, staring at the floor. As we approached the row of chairs where we had been sitting, I politely said to the lady, “I'm sorry, but those are our chairs”. The woman didn’t look up at me before she quickly stood up, pulling the little boy to his feet, gripping tightly to his hand - his head still hanging down. As she turned toward me I saw her dark brown eyes, almost black, with the same look of evil I saw in Davie’s jumping horse. Then suddenly I felt the same force I felt when I laid my hand on it, and that dark energy quickly encircled me. In that moment I realized in an instant that a battle was about to pursue, but there was no battle.
The moment I opened my mouth to speak, I started to boldly rebuke her, but before I could speak a single word, her arm reached out, extending four feet to where I stood. I felt her hand reach inside me and grab a hold of my right side, squeezing so tight I was paralyzed. In a deep, horrid tone she cursed out, "You bitch." I was helpless as I stood there, her dark piercing eyes glaring into mine, feeling her anger twisting and tormenting me. Her wicked voice with threatening words warned me to stay out. She was so powerful that when she let go, and the dream ended, I woke up feeling something awfully frightful. My husband had already left for work before then, and I laid there pondering the dream.
When I called Terry that morning to tell her about it, I had to first ask her a few questions. I had to be sure the woman was Davie’s mother. My first question I asked was: “What color is his mother’s hair?” I thought that was the most important question to determine if it was the same woman. When Terry said her hair was black, I was about to take a sigh of relief ... just as she went on to say, “Well, actually her natural color is red, but she dyes it black. ” My immediate, silent response was, “Oh My God.”
My second question was: “What color of eyes does she have?” Terry said her eyes were a dark brown, but she hadn’t seen her but a couple of times. Jeff had told her she dyed her hair black, that’s how she knew. She had not ever seen her with red hair.
My last question was: “'How does she dress? I mean, what’s her style like?” Terry said she dressed like a hippie, second hand clothes, no make-up, kind of a plain Jane. Why?” she asked. I gasped at her answers since the woman was wearing 1960s style clothing with red hair and brown eyes. When I told Terry about my dream, she was shocked. I asked her if they got that horse out of there and she said her husband put it in the garage and would take it to the disposal site the next weekend on his days off. I encouraged her evermore dire to get it off the property, telling her that woman had powers stronger than anything I had ever encountered.
The dream lingered with me a few days. and on that third night I woke up at midnight with such pain it felt like a bomb had exploded inside me. I woke up screaming bloody murder, waking up my husband. The pain was so excruciating at first that he was scared, insisting he take me to the hospital. As I laid there screaming in pain, curled up in a ball for a about 15 minutes, I told him no, I didn’t want to go to the hospital, not yet. As time wore on, the intense waves kept coming and going, getting less painful, and I managed to get downstairs and finally fell back to sleep on the couch. My husband had already fallen back to sleep when I stopped screaming. I didn’t even hear him leave for work that early morning. He didn’t wake me to see if I was all right, he just quietly left. He knew nothing about my dream or anything about what I had got myself into, at least not until the worst was over. I hadn’t told anyone, really, and I certainly didn’t want my little girl to be involved.
That morning my middle daughter got my youngest daughter ready for school. I managed to get back upstairs and into bed where I laid bearing the waves of pain that would come and go, come and go, sometimes so intense it felt like birthing labor at its highest peak, and other times like bad stomach cramps. It went on like that for nearly two weeks, wearing on me day in and day out, getting weaker and weaker, hoping I would get better. Finally it got so bad I went to see my doctor. By then, I could hardly get out of bed at times, and yet, there were days my oldest daughter took me grocery shopping.
My doctor ran tests and couldn't find anything visibly wrong with me. He sent me to a gastrointestinal specialist. It took almost a week to get in, and the wave of pain was still coming and going into its third week. The specialist checked me over and couldn’t determine anything either. He made an appointment at the hospital for me to have barium enema. Two days later my oldest daughter took me for the test. When the test results came back showing no visible problem, the specialist was scratching his head. He was quite baffled by what was affecting me.
While he was studying my test results, a hospital surgeon was walking by, and for some reason he stopped to look at my test results. He noticed something the other doctor didn’t. That’s when the specialist ordered a second barium enema. He setup the appointment for me in the next couple of days, but I never did make it to that second appointment ... and it’s a good thing I didn’t. The one I had got, had escalated my situation.
The next morning I called my daughter to come, “Hurry”, I told her. She dropped my one year old granddaughter off at a friends and rushed right over. She ran up the stairs and found me curled up in bed in terrible pain, weak and disoriented. She barely got me down the stairs and into her car. My two younger daughters had gone off to school by then as we fled the house. My oldest daughter wanted to take me to the emergency room, but I told her to take me to the specialist. When we arrived she ran inside, in a panic, letting them know my situation. A nurse came running out with a wheel chair and brought me inside. She took me straight to an exam room and helped me onto the exam table.
When the specialist came rushing in and saw me, his immediate reaction sent him into emergency mode. He rushed out of the room while I laid there scared and feeling near death. I could hear him on the phone in the other room, call after call after call trying to find an available surgeon. When he returned to the room he told my daughter to get me to the hospital and check in, that he has located a surgeon for an emergency procedure. He said there was no time to waste.
My daughter and the nurse got me back into the car and she rushed me to the emergency room where they were waiting for me. A nurse wheeled me into an office room to sign paperwork, insurance, and all that. I wasn't in any condition to do anything, I couldn't even think, talk, walk ... nothing. My daughter was trying to give the lady the info and got really upset it was taking so long. She began to scream “Can't you see my mom is dying. This is stupid,” she said, and insisted someone come get me.
I was so out of it that it didn't seem to matter to me if I died right there, I already felt as if I would die, that I had been slowly dying for weeks.
The office lady called someone and someone came and got me and wheeled me upstairs and got me all settled into a room. Several nurses began running around hooking me up to machines, trying to comfort me, telling me the surgeon would be there soon. I was drifting in and out when a man appeared at my bedside. He gently took my hand and gazed into my eyes and said, “I'm Doctor Soder, and we're going to take you up to the operating room in a few minutes. We don't know what is going on but we're going to find out. Do you understand?” he asked. I nodded. He said 'It's going to be okay.'
A few minutes later they brought in a gurney and got me onto that, and, in an almost full run, they start down the hall to the elevator. There must have been about four or five people running alongside of me. I was barely conscious, yet, when we got to the operating room it was ice cold, and my whole body inside and out shivered. The surgeon appeared again, in a haze, stroking my arm gently, telling me I was going to go to sleep now, and then I was out.
After an hour and half later, I was taken to the recovery room. By then my husband had been called off the mountain from where he was logging and had just arrived. I was told I didn’t wake up for a long time before they could take me back to my room. I had no memory of being there, except through an out-of-body experience. It felt like I was floating from above, looking down, seeing my body curled tightly in a fetus position, my skin a deathly blue, shaking and shivering uncontrollably, and I could hear myself mumbling over and over and over again, “I'm cold. I'm cold. I'm cold,” and it never stopped. I could see my husband sitting beside me, his face pale with the look of fear. I felt no emotion. It was like an observation. It only lasted a few minutes, and when I woke up, I was lying in bed in the same room I had left.
I hurt like I'd never hurt before. I pulled the sheet back and lifted the gown to see my stomach. I nearly went into shock when I saw the jumbo staples holding my entire stomach together after having been sliced open. I could hardly believe what had happened to me. It happened so fast. Shortly after that my husband came in. He told me I scared the hell out of him. He said I looked like death. He had never seen anyone so blue, he thought I was going to die. Then he said I was curled up in a tight ball, shivering and saying over and over that I was cold. He said he tried to get the nurses to put blankets on me, but they said I had go through the recovery process, assuring him it was normal. He couldn’t touch me, hold my hand or nothing because of the plexiglas surrounding the recovery bed. When he told me what happened, I told him about my out-of-body experience. I knew then it wasn’t a dream.
I was in the hospital for 5 days, pressing that morphine button as soon as it would give me another dose. The surgeon came to my room and explained what had happened. He said my appendix had rupture, and although it was very rare it can happen when the appendix gets a very small hole, just enough to seep toxins out slowly, causing a slow death. He said that's why none of the tests showed anything. He described what he had performed was called an exploratory procedure where he just had to open me up and see what was going on. He told me once I was opened he could see the massive abscess growing inside, and he had to remove my internal organs, clean me out, and put everything back together. He explained that a normal appendicitis is less than a thirty-minute operation, and if they could have caught it earlier it wouldn’t have been so serious. He looked me straight in the eyes and said very seriously, “I have to tell you, it's a miracle you are alive." He said, had I not got there when I did, I most likely would have died. He also told me he was that surgeon who saw my test results that day.
That experience taught me a big lesson, and I have never gone down that path again. I turned away from it, all of it, and stayed away from it - at least for a very long time. Didn’t talk about it, didn’t tell anyone for many years. It devastated me in a way that put the fear in me. Yet, it was a good educational experience, and I know it was one that I needed. I remember when I was still in the hospital, I heard the voice tell me that now I know I am not to challenge these things, but remain strong against them, to be ready when the Holy Spirit calls forth, but the Holy Spirit has yet to come forth since. But I have remained strong against the dark forces ... I am aware now. Perhaps there is a greater purpose sometime somewhere ...
I did inform Terry of what happened and she was sick about it. But after that ordeal, I really never saw her again. I don’t know what happened with her and her stepson, and frankly, I stayed clear of the whole dark mess she was going through
Since my oldest daughter had been married by then, my husband set up a bed downstairs in her old room. There was no way I was going to be able to get up and down the stairs. My middle daughter was sixteen and she helped take care of things until I was better I had laid in bed healing for weeks after that.
One day my manuscript arrived from the publisher. I was able to go through the entire thing while lying in bed, and got it sent back for publication. It was a struggle, and I wish I could have done better editing the final results, but I did it, barely. I finished what I had started despite all that had happened. It felt so vital that I get it done, and get it out there … though, I came to see over time it was written before its time.
Well, time has its own plan … and it truly is all about timing.
I healed and life went on ...
The End.
|
