WORDS FROM W.W. July 1, 2018
I’m not sure where I got the idea or how it penetrated into my imaginative mind. I just know it was there as soon as I leaped into bed at night. In fact, it became a habit for me to leap from a safe distance away onto my bed, like jumping from one cliff to another.
I had never seen the monster, but I had convinced myself that he was there. I’m sure my older brother, Charlie, helped in the bringing me to that belief. We shared a bedroom and I often became the gullible younger brother in his pranks and schemes. Four and a half years difference in age can sometimes do that.
Common sense and logic would tell the typical person that the monster wasn’t real. All you had to do was ask yourself some clarifying questions, like “Where does he go in daylight hours?” Or “Why is he always under my bed, but never my brother’s?”
But when it comes to monsters in dark places and six year old boys, common sense and logic take a hiatus from the scene.
I slept with both hands and feet IN the bed. No body part could be hanging over the side. That would be like accidentally sticking your hand in the water at the lake and having an alligator latch onto it! I had heard stories…probably from my brother!
Monsters live in dark places, I had been told. They live in the shadows of our life, repelling any hints of being safe, always ready to devour.
My mom always made me make my bed in the morning. It made no sense to me. Orderliness didn’t alleviate my fears that the creature wouldn’t return. And, after all, I was going to mess up the bed again in about twelve hours. If I got sucked into the abyss that night would someone else make my bed the next morning? You don’t touch crime scenes, you know!
I’m not sure when it was that I stopped fearing the unseen monster and became more convinced in the presence of the unseen God. My younger brother-side tells me it might have been shortly after Charlie became bored with the terrorizing of his little brother, but I have no evidence that is true. I think my fears of the underneath dark began to subside when I discovered “the light” of God and the abundance of scriptures that talk of God being the light and the light shining into the darkness.
At some point in my childhood journey the fear of my fears was tilted by my faith In God. The courage to let a hand or a foot hang carelessly over the side of my bed became a nightly risk of my reckless faith.
Nowadays when the shadow of a fear draws close to my thoughts, causing me to be uncertain and hesitant about life, I remind myself of the Light…”The Lord is my light and my salvation! Whom shall I fear? (Ps. 27:1)
I don’t even leap onto the bed anymore…unless I’m playing!
Words from WW Blog 