supernatural encounters
I’ve had many experiences in my lifetime that are kind of outside what most of us would consider normal. I’m going to just write these down as they come to me, not with any interpretation, not with any conjecturing about what they could mean. I do believe God is real, and that He can do whatever He wants. I do know that many times, these visions/thoughts/observations have brought me calm and peace and taught me to pray more specifically.
When I was newly married, my husband would leave for work long before I woke up. I conceived our first baby on our honeymoon, and instead of being violently ill like so many women , I just couldn’t get enough sleep. There were several mornings after he left our apartment, while I was in that weird place between sleep and wakefulness when I knew that someone came into our apartment. I heard the door open. I heard the footsteps. I sensed the person standing at the foot of my bed. I remember just laying very still, like maybe they wouldn’t know I was there. I could not open my eyes. I was scared but also not really worried that anything bad was going to happen. I just had to “ride it out” so to speak. This happened on at least 5 different occasions, so I know it wasn’t a dream.
I was asked to pray for a woman in a room near our church’s nursery. There were several people there and I was new to this kind of environment. She was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, while others were around her some with their hands on her shoulders; there was a hum of prayer in the room, some prayers in English, others in other languages. All of a sudden she slumped over and began hissing, her tongue darting in and out of her mouth. I now know this is what is considered demonic but at the time, it was weird to me and I didn’t feel comfortable at all. I excused myself and had a lot to think about.
A few years later, in a different church 2000 miles away from the first experience, I was standing next to a woman during a worship service on the second row. The music was lively and we were swaying and clapping our hands. Her dancing became more animated, even as the music slowed down. For a moment I didn’t know what to do, and then asked her if she would like to come with me toward the back of the sanctuary. As we walked toward the back she faltered and began to shake all over. Someone else came alongside us and we guided her into a room. She also began to make loud mocking noises, opened her eyes wide, and began hissing, doing the same thing with her tongue as had happened in the other church. I have remained in contact with this person for many years; she has been both troubled but also faithful and generous.
After another church service, my husband and I were asked into a little room to pray for a woman whom they said was demon possessed. The prayer was already in progress, and we watched as she wretched repeatedly during prayer. She wouldn’t look up and pray with us. This went on for some time, she was exhausted, we were tired and hungry. We just prayed one last time, and we went home.
I certainly experienced supernatural peace during the week I was in Haiti when the devastating earthquake of 2010 happened. (All those details can be found here.) But the first night was particularly profound. Before we had left for the trip, a friend prayed for us. He said, “I don’t know where you will be exactly, but I see you sitting on the sand, in perfect peace.” At the time I discounted it because I knew we’d be nowhere near a beach on this trip. But after a sleepless but incredibly peaceful and safe night in the hours after the quake happened, we saw that we were sitting next to a sand volleyball court in the middle of a sports complex, where we had walked to find safety with a group of church members in the night. Indeed, the peace was overwhelming in the midst of one of the most deadly natural disasters in human history. I have often asked God why he had us land 45 minutes before the ground shook, and honestly have never received a clear answer. But I have seen it as a gift; an opportunity to peer behind the veil of heaven and experience a small taste of glory. The presence of God was so powerful in that sports complex that night; I’ve never experienced anything like that again. One of my friends described it as sitting in God’s lap.
On a trip to Haiti in 2011 with my daughter-in-law, we wanted to visit a village in the Artibonite Valley; I had a contact there from after the earthquake and wanted to visit her. We went with some Haitian friends from Duke University who were fluent in Creole and English. The entire population of this tiny place was related, about 50 members of one huge family that made up the village. We greeted everyone and then asked if we could talk for a while, to find out what they might need, how we could help them. They had been ravaged by gangs and poverty since the earthquake had affected them all. Everything was drab brown. No life. Nothing green. No chickens running around. Just dry and dusty. They set up some chairs for us inside a building to get us all out of the blazing sun, and everyone gathered around. There were lots of barefoot children running around, many with sores on their skin, runny noses, etc. We asked if we could pray for the children. As soon as we began to pray, someone on the other side of the room came in with a long stick, dark sunglasses and began to shake the stick at us and some others in the room. As we continued to pray, the movements became more forceful, and she began moving through the crowd, groaning. I looked up from my prayer posture, and noticed for the first time that the walls were painted with symbols of voodoo. We were in a temple, and we brought the presence of the Holy Spirit into this unholy place. The person continued to strike people with the stick, yelling, and looking at us. Some people pushed her outside, and said she was crazy.
We left that place after a few hours, and went the next day to my friend Pastor Val’s place on the other side of Port-au-Prince. The first thing we noticed was how green everything was. How active and happy the children were. How much life was there. My daughter-in-law said, “there is such a strong obvious difference in the spiritual climate between these two places. One is death and this is life.”
Someone asked me once how I knew God was real, how I knew what I believed was true. Faith in the unseen is a crucial part of a walk with Jesus, but these encounters with the supernatural are definitely moments and glimpses into the fact that there is something more than what we can touch and see.