June 23, 2012 Greetings My Friend, I keep coming back to the thought of evil spirits. At one point in my life I was told I could “not believe” in evil spirits or Satan and then they did not exist. That comforted me for a long time since they scared me so badly. As I began to read my Bible though I began to see that Jesus talked about Satan and evil spirits and I felt that I needed to take them seriously. I don’t spend my every waking moment contemplating them and I try to fill my head with God and His love and I attempt to keep the spirits away from me by asking God to guide my steps. I still don’t like thinking about them to be honest. Then recently I talked with someone about the junk that was going on in my home and I felt even more pain for my siblings. I wasn’t subjected to some of the sexual abuse they were. I was the tattle tale child which saved me. A friend mentioned the evil spirits we allow to enter our lives and in some ways I find comfort and in some ways I am even sadder. I know for a good portion of my life I have wanted to be good and even have tried to be good. I was the oldest and a lot was expected out of me so my need to preform was great….was that my “being good?” I don’t know. I want to think that as children we are innocent and can’t allow evil into our lives. So again this is hard for me to process. I can look at my life since that is what I truly know and I see moments where I allowed some not good stuff to come reside in me. I had a dream life of other men. I never acted upon it but given time I may have. I had a temper a nasty one. I would haul off and slug people for no reason. I loved gossip. I would gossip every chance I got. I even drank and did drugs. I have not been a saint for sure. For a long time I even thought that my kids would love to hear my stories of how bad I was in high school. They weren’t interested. After a while I didn’t like living on the “wild” side. I settled down and tried to live a wholesome life. I remember in high school/junior high I wanted to have a wholesome look. I never longed to be a beautiful model. I just wanted to look wholesome. I also wanted to be wholesome and did not want to be unwholesome. I would say other than for a short period in my life I have wanted to be “good.” My siblings often called me “goody two shoes.” My guess is I wanted my parents to be proud of me. I was constantly told that I had to set an example for my sister and brother. I wanted my example to be a good one since I wanted Mom and Dad to be proud of me I guess I did not want to do bad things for my siblings either. With that “goodness” in mind I guess I wasn’t inviting anything evil into my life overall. Like I said I did have moments. I remember thinking in high school it would be cool to drink. It took me a while before I entered into drugs. I finally did and both my alcohol and drug use was short lived. I have to thank my ex for that. The stranger the requests got the more I found I did not want to be high and so I gave it all up after a time. I would have to say that my thought life was real bad for a good portion of my life. As I state often my shower time sent me into darkness most days. I remembered hurts over and over and over. I had my lustful thoughts. I was angry a whole lot. I was afraid of my anger as well. I had found that my children each took me to the point of no return once and then I backed off. I did not want to harm them as I had been harmed. I did not spank them very often. I knew that I’d go over the edge so I just did not spank them much at all. Dad started working on me about my temper and I kept at it. Today I rarely get mad. Junior and I have never ever hit each other. We talk out our struggles. I do deal with hurt and depression. I won’t strike anyone though. Since my divorce my goal is to talk to God daily. I try to read my Bible most days. I try to read it through and in the good years I read my Bible through and do some sort of study as well. I find that I am able to love deeper and more freely. Again I struggle with hurts and depression. My love though astounds me. I am able to love deeper now. I feel that God will replenish me. It is a wonderful feeling. I want to tell myself that as children we don’t know evil spirits. Frankly though we do. If I think on this then that is why we learn to “think outside” of ourselves and as children we are totally immersed into what we want when we want it way of being. We have to learn to think outside of our wants and desires as we grow up. In Proverbs I learn over and over that we need to discipline our children. How many adults do we know who are still stuck on the idea that what they want is what the world should give them? How many adults seem stuck in permanent puberty? They seem to party well into older years like they did in high school. As I have watched the generations through the years there seems to be a period of time for the ‘party’ lifestyle and then the young people begin to grow up. They have mortgages to pay, children to rear and the party days soon leave them. My head wants to say “no” evil spirits aren’t real. My heart says “oh yes there are evil spirits.” My thought as I end this is again found in the Bible. God commands parents to teach their children, to keep the commandments and to talk about them as they sit at home and walk along. Parents are you teaching your children about God and His ways? May God bless you and keep you make his face to shine upon you. Love Janet