Heal Me

I had a nightmare last night.

I was helping a friend close up a convenience store and as part of the process I had to lock myself in while she was outside punching buttons and then leave through another door.

As I heard the lock click, I look to my left and there’s a man standing there inside the store with me. A guy from round the way, wearing a white tee and a pair of scuffed up sneakers.

I can tell he’s planning to rob the store but didn’t expect that I would be there. I close my eyes because I don’t want him to think that I would be able to identify him and all of a sudden Flava Flav shows up and leads me to a room somewhere and there are so many other people there, all of them chained to the wall. My chains aren’t tight and I realize that I will be able to take them off once he leaves.

I see a man looking at me. He looks like my friend Joe. Joe can see the fear in my eyes as Flava leaves me in the dungeon with the rest of the people. Joe looks at me and says, “You are a strong woman. You are resilient. You will get through this.”

I remove the chains and jump out the window, screaming and running for help. I reach some projects and I see a crowd outside. The women are all shaking their heads and talking excitedly. I ask them what happened and they point to a 2nd story apartment.

“See what happens when you ignore your neighbors?” a lady in a pink short set and hair curlers responds. “I KNEW I shoulda checked on her because she wasn’t answering calls, she wasn’t answering the door, but I just said, hey, let me leave her alone. She may be busy. Next time I promise I’m gonna INTRUDE.”

“What happened to her?” I ask.

“The last time I saw her she was walking out of her apartment with a plastic bag over her head.”

As she describes this I can see the woman walking out, as if it’s happening in front of me.

“And where is she now?”

“She’s dead. Dead. They found her dead. I know her man did it. He was crazy.”

I backed away slowly until I removed myself from the crowd. Then I ran and ran and ran until I woke up.

I woke up.

I woke up and realized that there is a demon I had been fighting. I wrestled with this demon for so long that I want to be free.

So here’s my plea. Here’s my announcement to you, to God and to anyone else. I can’t live like this anymore.

I have a supernatural fear of men.

I feel like every man wants to hurt me physically and emotionally.

Every man.

EVERY MAN!

There are no exceptions.

I feel like they want to kill me and crush my dreams. Like they hate me for being me and are out to destroy any hope I have of being happy.

Once I met a man who I thought was different. My former pastor. I trusted him. I looked up to him. I admired him. What happened?

You remember.

I told him that I planned to leave the church and he flipped it on me telling me that I was being immature and that I had no business making a decision like that by myself. He told me I should go to counseling for a couple months with one of the church Pastors before I make a decision like that. He told me that the church was my family and they should be the most important people in the world to me. He made me feel as though I had to choose between his church and my happiness and that I was walking away from God’s blessings on my life because I decided to leave.

Then he told me that since I left he was no longer my Pastor, but he could be a friend. Funny how after all this time, when he called me to tell me he’s moving to Miami he referred to himself as Pastor XYZ.

I thought you weren’t my Pastor anymore.

His presence scares me. Maybe I’m being irrational and thinking too much of myself but my fear is so real to me. I used to lie in bed at night trembling, waiting for my children’s father to come attack me. I felt as though he hated me so much that he would. I felt like somehow I had disgusted him to the point, or maybe I had embarrassed him to the point where he would rather see me dead than to have me be the mother of his children.

Sometimes I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I hate being like this. I hate thinking that every man is out to kill me or destroy my spirit.

I’m tired of living in fear.

So I put this out there because I know that once I face my inadequacies head on, God does a work in me.

I’m trusting in that for this situation too.

Heal me Lord.

Show me your power. Work within me. Change me.