Later, I hurried out the door so I’d be there by noon to hear my favorite speaker. Except I didn’t make it by noon. An hour and a half into my journey, when I stopped at a post office to buy a stamp, I realized I HAD forgotten my purse, just like I’d said I would. I called my husband, and he agreed to go home for my purse and bring it to his place of employment. That saved me an hour. But I still wasted two hours coming back for my purse. And I missed my favorite speaker.

I’d been listening to a preacher talking about angels and how they obey what we say. So when I said, “I’d better get my purse right now or I’ll forget it”, and then I didn’t get it, did they think I meant to leave it?

And is that the same as when I tell my cat not to get in my path when I walk through the house in the dark or I’ll step on her? And I do? Or when the assistant pastor says no one shows up for church when the regular pastor is gone? And they don’t? Or when a mother tells her child not to go into the street or they’ll be run over by a car? And they are?

God used words to create. We are created in his image. Are our words creating our world, both good and bad? Are we limiting what God or His angels can do for us by the words we say? I wonder.

In the Bible, it mentions that God’s word does not return void but accomplishes what he purposes. Do our words also accomplish something? Are our words tearing down the people around us? Are our words destroying our health? Are our words shaping destinies without our realization? Saying is praying and praying is saying. I think I’ll pay more attention to what I’m saying.

What I got from that was that our prayers were freeing people from places/things that had them locked up behind closed doors. That there was pressure on that door, they wanted out, but someone had to open the door for them. And as we prayed, that was exactly what we did, opened the door and prepared the way for them.

But about a week later, it happened again except this time I saw the creature running around and around my house like it was looking for a way in. I could have excused it away as another dream or bad lasagna except for one thing: The cat on my bed started growling and the cat outside started clawing to get in. That made me wonder, if the animals sensed it, something about it was real.

And then one morning going to work I had a fit of road rage. Someone got right on my bumper with their lights shining into my mirrors. They followed me like that until I changed lanes (which I couldn’t do before because of all the traffic). Once they passed me, I got really angry and began tailgating them. I did this for several miles and then I kind of came to myself. That was completely out of character for me. Road rage was something I had worked on and overcame several years earlier. Where had that come from?

So I got to asking myself questions: What did this series of events mean? Were they related? And this is what came to my mind: Lately I’d been spending some time on a pagan website, visiting at their forum. I’d been having some talks with one of them about Christianity that were getting rather heated. He did not like Christians and talked about all the things that were wrong with the Christian religion. And he was correct on some points, there has been much damage done over the years in the name of all religions, Christianity included. While I could not dispute his claims, I did my best to explain what true Christianity is supposed to be, and all I could say to him was that I was much better at living it than explaining it.

So how are these two events related? This is what I think: I said I was good at living the Christian life. That creature was something sinister, a spiritual being. It was running around my house looking for a way in. He was looking for something wrong in my Christian life that would allow him in to attack, a chink in my armor, an opening in my wall of protection. He looked friendly, like a familiar cartoon character from my childhood, but actually, he was the wolf in the Red Riding Hood story, seeking to destroy me. Although the conversation I was having with the young man had the outward appearance of a friendly exchange, in actuality it was anything but friendly. His attacks against me were so violent; the other pagans had to intervene. I then examined my motives, why was I visiting their forum? And I won’t go into the reasons, but I will say they were all self-serving. I was clearly in the wrong because I was out for me.

Because my motives were wrong, because I was out for what I could get from the relationship, the negative spirits I had been associating with had attached themselves to me. What you give your attention to is what you become. I had been spending more time with the pagans than with my God and in so doing, had opened a door for the enemy to come in.

I quickly corrected the situation by stopping the visits to that website and asking God to forgive me for my wrong motives. The cartoon creature has not returned.