This may change slightly once I put it on my website but for now, here it is
for what it is worth.

Phil.


It Felt Like Death

By Phil Scovell




     Although I have not slept well for many years, something had
recently changed.  After awaking each morning, I felt unable to
physically function until late in the afternoon.  I finally
decided it was time to see our family doctor.

     Although he ran blood tests to see if anything showed up that
might be a possible suspect, his first guess was sleep apnea.  My
wife, a medical transcriptionist for 35 years, had been trying to
tell me that I had sleep apnea for more than two years but I just
didn't think that was my problem.  I have since learned that
people with sleep apnea rarely know, or think, they have it
because they generally don't realize their sleep is being
disturbed.

     In case the reader doesn't know what sleep apnea is, simply
defined, it is when you literally stop breathing during sleep.
So your brain sends a critical wake up signal, since you aren't
breathing, and your body will do anything to jump start your
breathing again.  It can literally feel as if you were
electrically shocked into consciousness if the apnea is severe.
That, in fact, was happening to me at times.

     One of the most obvious symptoms of sleep apnea is day time
total exhaustion to the extreme.  I have never been able to
describe that feeling until recently.  Saying I was just tired
wasn't exactly right.  Saying I felt extremely exhausted didn't
exactly define how I felt either.  I said often it felt as if I
were weak but that still could not describe my physical feeling.
Additional sleep would not make the feeling go away.  There just
wasn't a word in the dictionary I could find to identify how I
felt.  Strangely enough, by later afternoon or very early evening,
I always felt normal and my strength seemed to return and I could
function normally.

     Upon my doctor's recommendation, I entered the hospital for
an over night sleep study.  They glue four probes to your scull to
watch brain patterns during sleep.  They  wrap a strap around your stomach
and another around your chest in
order to monitor your breathing.  Additional probes and sensors
are taped to your legs to see if your legs jump rapidly during
sleep because often people with sleep apnea will jerk
spasmodically when their brain is trying to jolt them back into
breathing again.  I had experience many of those symptoms to the
point I was jerking awake and if one of my hands was near the head
of our bed where we have a book shelf, I often knocked things
over.  Frankly, awakening during the night time and time again in
this violent way, can be quite frightening and other emotional
concerns then easily come into play because you can't analyze what
is happening or why.  Also, they taped probes on my chest to
monitor air flow in and out of the lungs and to monitor the heart
during the night sleep.  In some cases, they have to come into
your room during the night to put a sleep mask over your nose in
order for you to breathe better.  During the night, from beginning
to end, you are video taped.  An intercom monitor is likewise on
in your room throughout the night.  This is so they can listen to
you and if you need assistance, all you need do is speak and
someone comes running.  All the wires running from the probes,
sensors, and straps, connect to a central device which is then
connected to the computer.  Specially trained technicians sit and
watch your data being displayed on the screen all night.  In
short, if you so much as break wind, which is an old way of
saying if you even pass gas during the night, it is recorded and
logged as data.  If you absent mindedly pick your nose during the
night, you are not only caught electronically by the computer but
you are on video tape as well.  Now, there's a family video you
can drag out and force your friends and relatives to watch for
seven or eight hours.  Makes sure you pop a 55 gallon drum of
popcorn if you plan on watching it straight through.  They also
want you to sleep on your back for the first hour or two,
something I normally find next to impossible to do, but then you
are allowed to sleep in any position you normally use.  Sure.  Try
rolling around with all these wires and cables hanging from every
part of your body and see how comfortable you are.  Then, when you
are awakened in the morning, feeling lousy, the quickly rip off
the tape and gummy glue in your hair to remove the wires and
probes.  Too bad if you forgot to shave your legs the night
before.  I did forget, I'm proud to say.

     In basic layman terms, sleep apnea occurs due to the tongue
sliding too far back and blocking the throat and thus cutting off
air flow to a lesser, or greater, degree.  Wearing a nose mask
with air flowing in and through the nasal passages, is often all
that is needed to keep the passageway opened for breathing to
occur normally.  In more severe cases, a surgical procedure is
available but most people find almost instant positive results
from wearing a device over the nose called Continuous Positive
Airway Pressure or C PAP for short.  This keeps the throat from
being blocked so the person can breathe and sleep normally.

     One day, following my doctor's appointment, and learning that
nothing in my blood work showed anything abnormal, I was sitting
on our deck swing praying.  The sleep study had been successfully
concluded and now I was waiting for my doctor to get the data back
from the hospital to see if I in fact had sleep apnea.  It was mid
afternoon so I was beginning to physically feel better for that
day.  I was thinking about how I felt and about what might be
wrong.  Since I couldn't describe the feeling in my body, I heard
the Holy Spirit suddenly say, "How does it feel?"

     Then I knew.  I said, "It feels like death."  It was true.  I
felt as if my body were physically dying yet I wasn't tired, I
wasn't sleepy, I wasn't weak, and I wasn't exhausted.  It felt
truly as though my body were physically dying.  As an intercessor,
I immediately recognized the warning signals and I began to
quickly do a spiritual search, as it were, to locate the cause of
the feeling of death.  Why?  Because I wasn't dying so the feeling
of death should not be there.  Yet it was.  I was going to pray
and find out why.

     I prayed and asked the Lord where this feeling came from and
I instantly saw the demon.  He was up high, as if sitting on a
tall hill near my head, and small and black.  I prayed a simple
prayer; binding his words and condemning them.  After dismissing
him from his assignments against me, I then turned him over to the
True Lord Jesus Christ.  He left.  The next day, I felt the best I
had felt in months.  Did it cure my sleep apnea?  No.  My prayer,
however, removed that feeling of death and prevented the Enemy
from creating a new foothold in my life.

     When we are sick, tired, run down, or physically ill, it is a
perfect opportunistic time for a demon to come and implant
thoughts of lies.  These lies are much easier to believe at such
times because we are blindsided by the illness, sickness, disease,
or infirmity.  I learned another valuable lesson.  When something
doesn't feel right, it isn't.  That means it has an origin.

     When I prayed, I fully expected to go to a memory where a lie
was rooted concerning death.  For example, when I was very small,
perhaps not more than 3 years of age, my mother and two older
sisters and I were in a car wreck.  Fortunately, none of us were
hurt but one of my sisters literally fell out of the car into a
muddy bar ditch which probably saved her life.  To this day, I
have strong vivid memories of the event and I have learned,
praying with others, an event, just like this one, could be, and
often is, traumatic for a child with subsequent emotional
repercussions.  Additionally, I well remember the time, in my
youth, I stepped on a nail.  I was taken to the hospital and the
ensuing infection became so painful, I remember telling my dad, as
he tried comforting me one night, that I wanted to die.  Bingo!
Perfect opportunity for a lie to be implanted by the Enemy or for
fear to become rooted.  I had to have my appendix removed when I
was quite small and I frankly do not have pleasant memories of
this event due to my age and being alone at night.  Another golden
opportunity for a lie to be inserted into a little mind that is
unable to process the fear being felt.  I could go on with many
such events but I hear someone saying, "these aren't major
traumatic experiences."  They aren't?  Try telling that to the 50
year old woman seated in my office who has suffered from
depression for literally decades.  When we pray and the Lord takes
her back to similar memories and events I have just described
which happened in her own life, and she is healed of the lies and
the fear associated with simple childhood events, what would you
call it if it was other than traumatic.  Furthermore, my father
died when I was 11 years old.  Exactly one year later, to the
exact date, I was pronounced totally blind and sent home from the
hospital after six months and more than a dozen surgeries on my
retinas.  These two events alone, even if nothing else ever
happened to me as a child, create fertile soil for the Enemy to
implant lies that my young mind simply found impossible to process
with adult understanding.  How do I know this?  Because, when I
turned 50 years of age, I slammed into depression full force and
began experiencing anxiety and panic attacks.  Nightmares and
voices kept me awake for days and I found it impossible to even
eat.  When the lies were exposed and remove, the anxiety attacks
and nightmares and voices all went away.

     Sometimes people wonder if all I do is hunt for demons.  The
answer is yes and no.  No, I don't look for them, and yes, I find
them during prayer sessions all the time.  Let me ask you a
question.  What would you say the cause would be when praying with
a woman who had been raped many years ago but when she embraces
those strong and powerful emotions of fear again, she becomes ill
and pukes her toenails up?  "Oh," I hear someone saying, "She
isn't a Christian because that wouldn't happen to a Christian."
If you think that, you would be wrong because she is a Christian.
"Oh," you say, "but all her sins were forgiven at the cross."
That's true but we aren't talking about the effects of sins
already forgiven; we are talking about lies buried so deep, just
the memory of the event brings back the fear and the apprehension
and the dread so strongly, the physical body reacts violently as
if the rape just occurred.  Using your salvitic theology I would
say you likely believe, therefore, God's Son just died for our
sins and nothing else?  Is this woman, for example, although born
again, unable to live a totally free life or is the salvation
Jesus died and bled for insufficient for her?

     "Well," the argument continues, "she is mentally ill.  That's
a case for the professionals."  What's a professional, if you
don't mind me asking?  Never mind.  I know what you think and I
know what you mean.  I am not a professional.  I have no degree
except for a three year THG general theology degree from a
seminary and I've lost that diploma.  I was once licensed to
preach in a very large Baptist church but I lost that piece of
paper so I can't prove it.  I was later ordained in the Baptist
church once but I lost that document, too, and have no idea where
it could be.  So, in short, I am definitely not a professional.  I
will tell you what I am even if you find it impossible to
believe.

     First, I'm born again.  Secondly, I was told by God I would
be an intercessor at a time in my life when I had no idea what an
intercessor was.  Nearly twenty years later, the Lord led me into
praying with people on a one-to-one bases.  I have watched God
heal people who the "professionals" called mentally ill and said
they never could be fully well.  How could someone, who is not a
professional, do that?  He can't.  Only a loving God, who gave His
Son that we might live, and was bodily resurrected after three
days of being dead and buried, could do something like that.  What
I really want to know is, where is the church when it is needed
the most?

     Now, if you break your leg or arm, come down with an illness
that doesn't go away, or need a cancerous tumor removed, for
crying in the sink, go to the doctor.  On the other hand, instead
of buying the lie of the Enemy that certain things should be left
up to the "professionals," maybe it is time we learned to pray.
Guess what will happen when you learn to pray?  You are going to
cross paths with demons who really exist and really talk and
really deceive even born again Christians.  So let's all get back
to work and stop trying to prove each other wrong.  We will have
lots of time in Heaven to find out who was and who wasn't.  For
now, keep your spiritual ears open when you are ill or facing an
infirmity.  You might be tricked by the Enemy.


I Flew Kites With Jesus
www.SafePlaceFellowship.com