I Woke Up in a Cold Sweat

My heart was racing, my breath was short, and I sat straight up in bed.

The images in my head are still too vivid.

I just had a nightmare. It goes like this;

This neighbor kid that we know somehow acquired a spool of fishing line and let it go loose in my back yard. Then, my one year old daughter was crawling nearby on the grass and accidently got tangled in the line. The neighbor kid goes over to her and wraps the line several times more around her neck and starts pulling. She is choking to death or maybe dead. I am sprinting over there as it is happening. I reach down to undo the fishing line from her neck. She is limp. I feel the line around my neck. The kid has now wrapped it around mine and is pulling. I keep unwrapping her neck but feel myself going out...

I am back running across the yard, like a do-over. This time, I attack the boy first, but his hand is still holding the line on one end and my efforts force the line to jerk her body suddenly several feet. I can still see the image.

This repeats over and over. Different scenarios.

The images were so real. I woke up and went and held her for a while, and sung her a song. She was fussing and awake already. My wife thinks that I heard her fussing in my waking state and that triggered the dream.

Maybe.

I believe it is spiritual warfare. I don't recall having nightmares since I was a kid, and nothing like that. I believe that I struck a blow on the Devil, and he is repaying me in my sleep. Warning me to stay out of his business.

The neighborhood kid is a wicked child, disobedient, disrespectful, foul-mouthed, and borders on animal cruelty. I believe he is on a path toward some truly awful stuff. My friend visiting from out of town came over and I was telling him (my friend), about this kid. We stopped right there and we prayed for the kid and his family. That was Tuesday night.

Last evening, the kid came over and was playing with my boys. The kid is around 9 or 10 years old and he comes over to play with my 7 year old, 5 year old, and 4 year old boys almost everyday. His behavior has sent him home many times and he is no longer welcome to come over without the accompanyment of one or both of his parents. He knows this, but comes over anyway, without permission when my boys are riding their bikes in the driveway. He has gotten my boys injured, lured them my four year old out onto a busy street, joked about putting an electric shock collar on my dog and shocking her just for fun, killed lizards in the desert for fun and encouraged my boys to come watch, thrown my boys toys over the fence into the desert briar patch, or up onto my roof. The list goes on.

I was inside when I heard him over again, without permission in my driveway. I gathered all four of them together and I sent my three boys inside the house and had a one on one talk with the kid. I explained to him that my wife had made the rule about him and his parents. I told him that I loved him and that God loved him and that he was made in God's image, but that he had wicked behavior that was not acceptable. I told him that if he could learn to be gentle, kind and respectful that we could be friends. And if he couldn't, he wasn't going to be allowed to come over. I told him that I loved him as Christ loved him, but that I would not tolerate wicked behavior on my property or around my kids and I wouldn't tolerate him playing rough and endangering my children. I told him that the beginning of any kind of friendship was to respect my wife's rule about his parents. If he could do that and be all the things that I mentioned then could earn back the right to come over without his parents. I told him we needed to build trust and love and that I was willing to be his friend if he could do that.

He looked me in the eye and I shook his hand. His grip was solid and firm and he looked as if no one had ever spoken to him that way before. I don't think they have. A couple of weeks ago, I had to send him home and the look in his eyes was of such hatred, as if he could literally kill me, and would if given the chance, that I was looking through a window into the fiery pits of Hell. That look was gone when I spoke to him yesterday. I think my statement got through. When I told him that I loved him as Christ loved him, he almost looked as if I had struck him, and he paid very close attention to everything I said after that.

I now believe that whatever demon is working on that child got singed with the love of God and is pissed off now. I believe that this nightmare was sent to me to chase me off from this kid. I have not had such a vivid spiritual experience before. It is amazing, and I cannot be more certain that this is what happened.

I call upon anyone reading this to pray for this boy and his family and my family that this devil would lose this fight and that this child might find Love, Joy, and Peace in Christ and be snatched out of the pincers of the Abyss. Amen.

I am going to try and get some sleep now.