Although there were a couple of unusual spiritual things
which occurred as far as communicating with these medical people,
at both dental offices, I'll save that story for another time.
What occurred in my life recently, on the other hand, is what I
want to share with you.

     As most of you know, a little over two years ago, my life
radically changed.  I reached a point in my walk with the Lord
where I felt I could advance no further.  I felt the Lord speaking
to me about quitting my job and that scared me.  The Lord had
already told me He had a plan for my life but He only told me
enough that I knew basically it had to do with intercessory
prayer.  Well, I don't mind telling you, I did not want to quit my
job.  I have been broke many times throughout my life, and in
particular, super broke, upon occasion, while working full time in
the ministry.  I in no way wanted to go through that again.
Frankly, I didn't trust God.  After all, He hadn't provided for me
many times in the past so why would He now.  This was a lie, of
course, but I was thinking with my flesh and not with my spirit at
the time.  So what happened?  Life began to close down all around
me.  I felt the depression and anxiety coming and began doing
everything in my power to stop its advance.  I buried myself in
prayer, Bible reading, confession, memorization of Scripture, and
I crammed in all the church work I could find.  The darkness
continued its slow ominous advance upon my life.  I felt the fear
in that darkness and struggled to stay clear.  The fabric of my
life began to tear in insignificant places and the fear,
masquerading as pain, began creeping in.  I beat at it, cursed it,
commanded it away, jumped and stomped on it, and pounded on it but
it only continued to grow.

     I began having bad nights where I would awaken multiple times
throughout the night.  Cold raw flashes of anxiety washed over me
occasionally and I knew it was coming no matter how hard I tried
to stop it.  I begged God to help but still it came; seeping into
every corner of my life.  Circumstances all around me began to
look larger than life and soon larger than God's Word and
eventually bigger than God Himself.  Voices, which had only been
thoughts before, now demonstrated they had personality.  Using
their skills at deceitfulness, they confirmed things were rapidly
becoming hopeless.

     Eventually the voices became bolder and began attempting to
keep me from falling to sleep.  I began to double and triple my
sleep medication to silence the voices long enough that I could
fall to sleep but they soon were able to even awaken me out of a
drug induced sleep and startle me awake with such force, I
thought I was having nightmares.  Let me describe one of these
nocturnal events to show you how bad it was becoming at that time.

     One night, I took a whole pharmacy of medications to force me
into sleep.  I was sick of hearing the voices and sick of the fear
they brought.  No, I wasn't becoming a drug addict; I was just
scared and frightened of what was happening to me.  what were the
voices doing to keep me awake?  As I would drift off to sleep,
they would wait until I was just about asleep, and then I would
hear a loud pop or bang in one ear and I would be startled awake.
As I tried going back to sleep again, other sounds and noises,
would be used. Sometimes even my name would be called, and I would
jump into full alertness.  The prescription sleep medications
helped, at times, to deaden the sounds I heard, enough to allow me
to go to sleep but more and more, the voices and sounds were
invading my sleep.

     One night, as I said, I took an unusual large dose of the
medication.  I wasn't afraid of over dosing but I was afraid of
the voices and what they were doing to me.  I went off to sleep.
Drug induced, yes, but I was asleep.  I had not been asleep more
than perhaps an hour when it happened.  I felt like I was a deep
sea diver.  I saw myself swimming about twenty feet below the
surface when something dark swam up behind me and grabbed one of
my legs by the ankle.  Fear instantly flooded my mind and I felt
myself being violently jerked to the surface.  When I reached the
surface, I was instantly awake.  I was totally disoriented from
the drugs and the frightening nightmare and began to cry out.
Sandy awakened and began talking to me to give me a point of
reference.  I do not know what I would have done if I had been
alone because I wasn't even certain where I was at the time.

     Things grew worse.  As I have said, the voices eventually
took on personalities.  Yes, I knew they were demonic but no
matter how often I used the name of Jesus, they remained.  The
tormenting increased until I could no longer go to sleep due to
fear.  It finally came to the point I was not only unable to go to
sleep but I was unable to eat.  I was awake, and without food, for
five days.  then things got worse.

     I have written concerning the details of all the took place
beyond this point so I won't detail all that now.  I felt it
necessary, however, to say this much in order to identify the fear
in my life and how it became impossible to manage.

     I have experienced major surgery in my life about fifteen
times.  Over a dozen of these were related to my retinal surgeries
when I was eleven years of age.  As I have told the story before,
giant amounts of fear were plugged into my life during those days
and for various reasons.  If you want to read the details, read my
testimony called, I Flew Kites With Jesus.

     Over the last two years, the Lord has been healing me in
place after place after place where fear has been implanted.  The
Enemy has been steadily losing ground.  Strongholds were exposed
by the Holy Spirit and pulled down.  Footholds were discovered and
eliminated through prayer.  I am not suggesting fear has been
totally eradicated from my life but now I know how to find it and
how to get rid of it.  So, now.  Back to my root canal story.

     The other day, after all the stress and pain I was
experiencing, I knew it was a good atmosphere to generate anxiety
because of the physical stress and strain and physical pain
involved.  After all, few people enjoy going to the dentist.
Those of us who have horrible experiences with the dentist are
especially susceptible.

     By the end of the day, I was laying in the dental chair as
the Endodontist and his assistant worked on my root canal.  My
back hurt, my muscles were stiff, and to say the least, I was
stressed out.

     As I lay there letting them work, I realized something was
different.  I thought about it for awhile but wasn't certain as to
its nature but something felt different.  Then it hit me.  I
wasn't nervous or afraid like I normally would have been.  You
see, with all the fear that was implanted in my life when I was a
child going through all that major surgery, and even then, only to
lose my sight, such stressful events in my life triggered lots of
painful memories of those earlier days.  This time was different
because there was no fear.

     As they worked on me, I began to feel around in my emotions
to see if I could detect any areas of fear.  If I would have found
some, I would have known there were other areas along those lines
which need healing.  I found nothing.  I felt around in my
emotions again and pushed deeper into my thoughts to try and
expose any fear.  Still nothing.  I tried generating the fear
myself by making fearful suggestions such as, "They aren't going
to be able to fix it.  You are going to have worse pain than ever
before.  The same thing is going to happen to you this time that
happened the last time and you know how bad that was."  Even
after these thoughts were deliberately created in my mind, still
no fear came.  I was at peace.

     I wonder how many of you reading this article have had
something like what I am about to describe ever happen to you.
Often, even in the middle of the day, as a grown adult man, if I
went into the basement alone, sometimes, while doing whatever I
went downstairs for, I would suddenly feel a cold fear wash over
me and I'd get goose bumps all up and down my arms.  Sometimes it
would run down my spine.  Something felt fearful and frightening
around me.  I would always brush it off as having watched too many
spooky movies as a kid.  I remember one time being in the basement
alone at night and those cold fearful thoughts came around and it
literally felt like something put its hand on my shoulder.  Yes,
it did scare me but again, I shook it off.  After all, I'm a grown
man now.  There's nothing there.

     In the past two years, I have received healing from fear in
places of my life I never dreamed were there.  As I lay on my
back and listened to the people working on me, I suddenly realized
I could not generate, even on my own, any fear.  As I thought
about it, I realized there was only one answer.  The healing of
fear by the Lord in so many other places in my life had now
reached even into this realm of my physical life.  In short, fear
had no foothold.

     By the way, many months ago I was in our basement alone.
Suddenly, I realized I had no fearful feeling around me.  I
stopped and deliberately attempted to generate the fear by
thinking certain thoughts.  Nothing happened.  Even now, almost
every time I go to the basement alone, I try and generate the fear
I used to feel.  It is gone.  Why?  Because the demons associated
with the fear are gone.  They have no more foothold upon which
they can gain access to my emotions.  The solution is simple.
Allow God to heal you in the areas of deep rooted fear, let the
Holy Spirit expose the lies associated with it, and you will then
be able to hear God's truth spoken to you and the truth will set
you free.


I Flew Kites With Jesus
www.SafePlaceFellowship.com