And Other Thoughts

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Monday, February 6, 2012

Tormented

Our two year old son Tavin has been tormented for weeks with a serious stomach issue. We’ve taken him to ER twice, and both times no one could give us real answers. His pediatrician has been incredibly ineffective in helping him, and instead of finding out what was causing the problem, she diagnosed it with medicine she thought would cure a problem she wasn’t even sure of.

The pain my son has been experiencing has been beyond anything any parent should ever have to watch their children experience. For nearly four weeks, our son has been writhing in pain, screaming in agony, and searching our eyes for some kind of help. This hasn’t been a moment here or there; it’s been four full weeks of torment! Screaming, moaning, groaning, crying, hysterical fits. And when he hasn’t been doing any of that, he’s been lying flat on his back lifeless.

I’m going to backtrack for a minute and tell you that we have always prayed with him, and would scream out the name, JESUS, in authority every night before bed. He got a such a kick out that and would always laugh.

But then we started struggling. Our world began to quickly crumble around us. All of our like-new computers and big screen TV just crashed and burned. At first we took it in stride, but when we saw that we couldn’t get these items fixed or replaced, it was difficult for us. My husband’s iMac was an important part of his need to get his music out there professionally. And my computer was my only source of income as a freelance writer. Without those tools, our connections were lost.

Soon our finances were beating us down. Our cell phones were shut off, our utility bills sky rocketed, and we couldn’t even afford gas to get to church. Our faith was shaky at best. We walked a very fine line. And our prayers stopped. Our hope diminished. But somehow we clawed our way out of the despair and soldiered on. Unfortunately, we forgot to include our son. We stopped praying with him. Stopped calling out on the name of Jesus. Stopped taking him to church.

During that time, too, Tavin started talking about a “ghost.” We believed him because we had “felt” something in the house for quite some time. There was a particular spot in our stairwell where it always lurked. You could feel it latch onto you. There were many times that my husband would need to walk down with me so I could go to the bathroom at night. But I got tired of that thing getting the best of me, so I demanded it to leave by the authority of Jesus Christ. I never felt it again. However, Tavin began to see it everywhere. He would point to a dark, empty room and say, “Look daddy! Ghost!”

During these last few weeks of Tavin’s sickness, we prayed hard over him. We were diligent. At first our prayers were, “Why God!? Why are you doing this to him?” That quickly changed to, “Please God, heal him.” During those prayers, when we would try to get Tavin to pray with us, it nearly drove him to the brink of insanity. He would scream louder and his face would contort and his eyes would turn blood red. We would try to get him to say, “Jesus,” and he would yell, “NO!!'”

Tavin refused to pray, wouldn’t even mention the name of Jesus, wouldn’t say his nighttime prayers, and began throwing horrific temper tantrums. Although that’s natural for his age, these were beyond the normal terrible two tantrums. These were outright hysterical fits. There were times the look in his eyes scared the daylights out of me. And this was all coming from a boy who is outlandishly generous with affection, love and tenderness. Sure he had temper tantrums before, but these were blood curdling fits of rage. Whenever we began to pray for him, his pain seemed to intensify and his screams got louder.

Then the night terrors began. The screeching, startling screams in the middle of the night…night after night after night.

The last two days have been my breaking point. I was beyond the begging prayers of healing and began declaring authority over Tavin’s body and life. When I did that, it calmed him down and it seemed as if his pain was relieved for a time. Again, I tried to get Tavin to come into agreement and pray, but he still refused.

Today was a different story. I proclaimed outright that the devil was not going to control this situation anymore, that I was standing on God’s Word as the Truth and declaring the devil a bold faced liar. Well, that’s when all hell, quite literally, broke loose.

Tavin got worse very quickly. We brought him to the doctor for another emergency appointment, hoping to get some help or be led in some sort of direction on what to do for him. Waiting in the doctor’s office, Tavin’s pain was excruciating. He was literally lying on his back on the floor of the lobby, writhing, screaming and crying. We waited thirty-five minutes and the doctor never called us. We were outraged and frustrated and decided to just leave and take him to ER again, knowing full well we’d get nowhere there, too.

In the car, Tavin was so exhausted by it all that he sat listless and miserable, but suddenly quiet which was unusual. So I suggested we take him home and let him get some rest and take him to ER later if things got out of hand again. Fortunately we went home, because right after we walked in the door, my mother called (we don’t have cells anymore) to inform me that her doctor was admitting her into the hospital. The chemo was taking a major toll on her body. So we put Tavin down for a nap, called my brother-in-law to watch him and off we went to be with my mom.

We came home to find Tavin lying on his back on the sofa. Within minutes the pain started and he was uncomfortable again. Then the screaming started up again, but this time I heard something else. Jared was praying over him, and a language I’d never heard screeched out in anger from his tiny mouth. To the normal ear it would have been frightening, but to me it just set me off in righteous anger.

I yelled for my brother-in-law to come into the bathroom where Tavin was on his potty chair, and said, “This is over! We are praying for him. We are casting this demon out of him.” We all laid hands on him and I began to demand the demon(s) to leave by the authority of Jesus Christ. “You have no stronghold over Tavin. No authority. No right! He is a child of the Living God and covered by the blood of Jesus! You have to leave his body, because you don’t belong here. No weapon formed against him will prosper. He is dedicated and committed to God, so you have to go now!”

As I prayed this, my son’s body began to convulse, and the rage was beyond anything I’d ever seen before. He was beet red and jumping up and down in hysterical fits, and the screams that came from him were unnatural. All of a sudden he began having a bowel movement that was probably the equivalent to ten pounds of waste. He couldn’t stop! At this point he was trembling and his teeth were chattering, so I pulled him close and held him while he sat on his potty and pooped that demon out, and it came out of him without him even having to try. He was terrified as to what was happening to his body. His arms were wrapped tightly around my neck and his body was weak. So I lifted him up, cleaned him off and brought him to the sofa to rest. He laid there quietly for about fifteen minutes and then got up and began to laugh and play just like he used to do nearly a month ago. Oh, how we missed that boy!

I brought Tavin to the hospital to see my mom later, and on the way there we saw the most gorgeous sunset and I blurted out, “Thank You, Jesus!” A tiny voice echoed from behind me, “Thank you, Jeesis.” So I said it again, and he repeated me again. And then we prayed together in the car. Before bed he prayed again and started yelling out, “Jesus!” giggling like he used to do.

Although everything is back to normal and wonderful, Tavin has started to talk about the ghost again. In fact, on the way to the hospital he said he saw it. I suddenly remembered how he used to talk about it before, but these last few weeks he never mentioned it. He didn’t need to. It was tormenting him from the inside out.

Jesus told us we have the authority to cast out demons. I take Jesus at His Word. As believers, we have the very same “plug-in” that Christ had to God; the very same power and authority. Many of us don’t believe that, so we never plug into God the way we could and should. Thank God I did!

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