Just When You Think You are Alone...

Original Date: Winter/Early Spring 2006

Before I met my husband, I had fallen into a very dark place with my relationships. I was married for 7 years, spent about a year in a live-in relationship with a very horrible man who would lie, steal and manipulate me and moved from that into a series of very short lived less than fruitful relationships. I had found myself in a rut looking so hard for companionship and it had been costing me greatly.

The following is a description of a life changing event that happened that helped to get me back into the church after an almost 20 year hiatus...please note, this is not a polished literary work. This is real honest to goodness play by play written at the time.

...............................................................................................................

Sunday night I suffered, yet another, romantic let down. I wasn't anything too terrible, but I basically had my hopes up and it turned out to not be what I had expected. So I was intent on finding some temporary solace from my loneliness. This is something that I had resolved myself against. I realize that it does no good in the long run, like a drug - you feel wonderful during the high but after the crash, you are worse than where you started.

I was acutely lonely. All I could think about was that I was alone. My strength in the resolution to avoid unhealthy relationships had faded to basically none. So here I was at 2:00 in the morning looking online for an available "friend" from my past. There were none available, there would be no temporary fix tonight. I decided to try to sleep it off.

I woke up shortly after falling asleep to an awkward feeling that I was not alone. I look at the only light in the room (coming in from a window) and a good part of the window was obstructed. As my eyes adjusted, there was a shadowy figure of a person hanging from the ceiling. I tried to move, but was paralyzed. This was getting to be normal for me, sleep paralysis happens often in narcolepsy. You body is paralyzed to keep you from acting out your dreams, but your body has not received the signal that you are awake.

Realizing it was a dream, I convinced myself to close my eyes and go back to sleep. I woke up again and it was still there!! This time I could move and I stood up and tried to pull it from the ceiling. I could feel it, it was solid. It wasn't fighting me, but wasn't budging either. I gave up and noticed that I still hadn't moved from the chair I was sleeping in...it was a dream and i was paralyzed again...I convinced myself to go back to sleep.

I woke up yet again and it was gone. Still feeling as if I was not alone and the all too real creepiness, I got up and checked the door which I know that I had locked...It opened with a push. It was unlocked. I started to freak out and realized that there I sat, still in the chair, paralyzed....I convinced myself back to sleep.

Woke up again and the figure was back, only now it was standing right in front of me!! Right there at my feet. It was just an opaque shadow, tall, a trench coat or duster with a wide brim hat. It wasn't moving, wasn't threatening to hurt me, It was just standing there looking at me, haunting me.  I was still paralyzed and wishing this dream would end I did the only thing I could do, give in, stop fighting to move or scream and I went back to sleep.

(The only way for me to be able to move again when i am having sleep paralysis is to fall back asleep and wake up again, hopefully my body will get the hint. Struggle to move is futile and very scary and frustrating.)

Again, I woke up. It was gone, I look up at the window and it was hanging again on the ceiling. I looked, trying to study it...trying to get a handle on what was going on...this time actually knowingly waking up and it was gone.

I walked to the front door and it was locked. I was freaked, but not too much, I mean...it was a dream, right? I turned on the computer again, this time still hoping that a "friend" would be online, still terrible lonely and now even more scared to be alone. No one was available. 

Within minutes, I logged into a dating site that I hadn't logged into in 3 or more weeks....seconds later - I was IM'ed by a man. He was good looking, seemed nice, he wasn't going overboard with the "hey sexy, what's up" crap that I loathe. He just wanted to talk.

Very quickly in the conversation, he asked about what I meant by "Marriage, in the long run" on my online profile....and took the conversation toward a religious direction.

He was saying that I (he) didn't need to look for a worldly union or companionship from someone else, that I (he) could count on God for that. That all I needed to do was grow in my faith and that if marriage was meant to be it will be given by God. I would be shown who it is that god is to give me. Until that day comes, I can be satisfied with what He will give. 

He was very convincing and I was believing him. I was regretting the thoughts that I had that were leading me to find companionship for the night and was much more at ease with myself. 

At this point he must have known that I was on board, he told me that he was told to tell me these things. He had delivered the message that was given to him specifically for ME. He wasn't trolling this dating site to look just any lonely soul. I didn't know it but he was about to give an amazing credibility to that statement. 

Mind you, I hadn't told him anything about what had happened prior to turning on the PC - I wanted to meet a man, not scare one away...then he blew my mind. He told me that he had to battle with a spirit (or demon) to be able to talk to me. There was so much more that went on in the conversation, but imagine my shock that he would say something like that after giving me just the very message at just the very same time that I needed it and moments after the experience I just had.

I was lonely to the point of tears before I started talking to him. And during this conversation, I was realizing that I am not alone, even without a man by my side. 

He went on to say that he belonged to a sect called "Sons of God" is one of hundreds of his "brothers" that are able to receive messages from God, messages meant for specific persons. Cynicism started to set in. I was beginning to think, wolf in sheep's clothes, and psycho extremist (yet christian) cult... but the message was perfectly undeniable, the coincidences were just to unreal to be fantasy... and I was on a cloud for hours.

..............

Several times since this encounter, I tried to locate a website that the man referred me to so I could see he was legit, but to no avail. Anytime I really tried to question myself about the identity of the deliverer of the message, I kept hearing my own voice overriding these thoughts - "Go to the Bible, Tina, Go to the Bible".