THE MONSTER OUTSIDE MY WINDOW

It was early in the morning; maybe two o'clock. I was startled from sleep by a noise. It sounded like something big ran into the corner of the house outside my room. Still half asleep, I thought the worst. In my mind, I pictured some kind of monster. I could only imagine what he looked like, but I could actually hear him breathing loudly, and fast. He must have been running for a while before he ran into the house. Maybe he was just resting for a minute or two, then he would move on. My bed was in the corner of the room, and there was a small window above the headboard of my bed.

I was lying on my back with the covers up to my nose with my mouth covered with everything under the covers except my eyes. I was scared to death. I couldn’t move. I was literally paralyzed with fear. I was afraid the monster was looking in the small window above my bed, so I was afraid to move. I wanted to jump up and run for my life, but I was literally paralyzed with fear. My heart was beating so fast and so hard that I was actually in pain. I was scared to death.

I laid there for what seemed like forever before I was finally able to gain just enough courage to throw back the covers and jump out of bed. When I looked back at the window, there was nothing there. What a relief. I started to calm down and I began thinking a bit more clearly.

When I crawled back into bed and pulled the covers back up over my face, I realized where the heavy breathing was coming from. It was me. I felt so stupid. Remember, I had my face covered. My mouth and nose and part of my ears were all under the cover. As for the noise I heard, it could have been anything, or it could have been nothing. After all, I was asleep when I heard it. Since then, on several occasions, my neck has popped and made a loud noise in my head, usually when I was lying in bed. I’ve learned that we often imagine things, and our mind actually blows it way out of proportion. Like mine did that time.

There was a similar incident, another time when I was older. We lived in an old house that had been remodeled. The last man who lived there died there, and rumors were floating around that the house was haunted. I was in my room one day with my headphones on, remixing a song on my fancy dual cassette recorder. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my bed start shaking. I quickly turned to see what was on my bed but there was nothing there. I threw my headphones off and started to jump up to run out of the room. When I turned around toward the door, there stood my sister’s husband laughing his head off. He had accomplished his goal, though. I was terrified. I had thought the worst.

Sometime later, in the same house, I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn’t feel my arms. I couldn’t move them either. I didn’t know what was happening so it scared me to death. I couldn’t throw the covers off so I got out of bed the best way I could. My feet got tangled up in the covers and I fell to the floor on my knees. Since I had no control of my arms, I couldn’t put them out to catch myself, so I ended up with my face on the floor as well.

Did I mention that I was screaming the whole time? Well, I was, and that brought everybody in the house running into my room thinking a ghost was attacking me. I had started a new job that week that required me to open and close my hands repeatedly throughout the day. My muscles were having spasms and my arms were numb because of the pressure of the swollen muscles on my nerves. My point is, I was afraid. I don’t like being afraid. It’s not a natural thing. It’s painful, both mentally and physically.

I know some people believe fear is a natural thing because every human will experience it at some point in their lives. Some say that fear is healthy in certain situations, like being afraid of a snake, but just because something happens to everyone doesn’t mean it’s natural. It’s wise to be cautious around snakes, and in many other situations, but we don’t need fear to be cautious. In fact, God’s word tells us that fear is not a natural thing. And as for it being healthy, anything that doesn’t come from God is not healthy, and the Bible says fear does not come from God.

2 Timothy 1:7 
7 For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Fear is a monster, but it’s not outside our windows, or in our bedrooms. Fear is in our minds, and it’s placed there by Satan and his evil angels. Fear does not produce sound minds. Fear leads to broken minds. Just look at the majority of people with mental illness. Fear consumes their minds, and that’s not what God wants at all. Fear does not come from God, and it is not healthy at all.

On several occasions, Jesus told his followers not to be afraid. In the King James Bible, the phrase “Fear Not” is recorded sixty-two times. God doesn’t want us to be afraid. With God on our side, there’s no need for fear. The Apostle Paul said, “If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31). We need to trust God. A close personal relationship with Jesus, the Prince of peace, is vital if we want to purge fear from our minds. If you don’t have that, all you have to do is ask. Peace is only a prayer away.

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FROM JOY TO DESPAIR, AND BACK

The night my daughter was born, my wife was lying on the couch watching TV. She told me she was hurting. She was far enough along for the baby to come at any time. I told her we needed to go to the hospital, she could be in labor. She said she didn’t want to go because it might only be gas. I told her it was better to be safe than sorry. The hospital we were using was about forty miles away. She said she would feel stupid if we went that far only to find out it was gas. After about an hour, with no relief, I finally talked her into going. When we got there, and they checked her out, we were both glad we had gone. She was in labor.

There had been two complications with her pregnancy. One was the RH Factor blood incompatibility. My wife was RH-positive, and our daughter was RH-negative. This can cause problems, and if you don’t understand it properly, it can cause a lot of fear, and worry. Her doctor had not done a good job explaining all this to us, in the first place. Then, on one of her later visits without me, he was out, and the doctor who was seeing his patients evidently didn’t understand it himself. He rattled on, and on about the dangers, throwing in some words like MAY and MIGHT. He upset her so bad that she was worried to death.

The second complication was that our daughter was breech. By about thirty weeks, the baby was supposed to be turned with her head down toward the birth canal. With each visit, the doctor had noticed she wasn’t turning, so he kept a close watch on the situation. He said there was nothing to worry about, she still had time to turn. Well, she never did, and soon she was too big to turn. At that point, he told us natural birth was out of the question. She would have to undergo a C-section to safely deliver the baby. Now, it was time, and our little girl was ready to get out of there.

Well, the doctor was called, and the nurses started getting things ready. While the doctor’s nurse was checking for dilation, she said she felt the baby’s head. I thought that was strange because we knew she was breech. I didn’t know much about pregnancies. I guess she could have turned, but the doctor had said she wouldn’t turn this late in the pregnancy. I told the nurse the baby had been breech, and I asked if she had turned. She said, “Oh, I’ll check again.” She checked again and said she was still breech. At this point, we became even more worried. I wondered, “Does this woman not know what she’s doing? Has she not looked at my wife’s chart?” We were already praying, but that made us pray even more.

Soon the doctor came in, and talked to us, and made us feel a little better about the situation. We went down to surgery, and I held my wife’s hand as our beautiful little girl came into the world. The doctor said, “It’s a girl. She has ten fingers and ten toes.” We were glad to hear that. When my son was born a few years earlier, in the same hospital, there was a baby born with six fingers on each hand. It’s not as rare as you make think, but all was well with our little girl. Praise the Lord. She was now in the safety of our arms, and we were so thankful to God for working everything out.

She’s all grown up now, with a family of her own. She has grown into a strong, beautiful young woman. I was blessed and honored when she asked me to perform her wedding ceremony. She was so beautiful. I was reminded of the day that I married her mother. I’m so thankful I was able to be a part of her life, and have the opportunity to teach her about Jesus. I pray that God will continue to bless her, and her family in every way possible.

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WHEEL OF MISFORTUNE

I believe I was four, or five years old at the time. My sister was sixteen months younger than me. We were playing outside by a tree in the sideyard of our humble little home in the small town of Theo. The same place we lived when my sister rode The Horse That Almost Reached The Sky. All of a sudden we heard a faint noise coming from somewhere up the road. It sounded a bit like a helicopter, but not exactly. It sounded somewhat like the wings of a thousand hummingbirds, but we knew that wasn’t what it was. All we could do was wondered what could it be.

As the noise came closer, we ran to the front porch where our grandmother was sitting with our aunt. Soon we found out what was making that awful noise. It was a gang of bikers on their motorcycles. There must have been a hundred, or more. As they came closer, the noise got louder, and soon all we could see was dust on the road. We lived on a gravel road, and our house was pretty close to it. We only had a small front yard. Thinking about it now, those motorcycles remind me of a cattle stampede.

After what seemed like forever, the noise started to fade, and soon the dust began to settle. In a few minutes, we began to be able to see the road again. Wow! It was kind of exciting, but scary at the same time. Kind of like watching a wild animal in the open woods. You want to keep watching to see what it does, but at the same time, you want to run for your life.

After a while, we went back to whatever we were playing out in the yard by the tree. We had forgotten about the motorcycles. We were engrossed in our childhood fun, when our aunt called out to us, and said, “Y’all come back to the porch, I hear them cranking up. They’re coming back.”

With that, we ran back to the porch. It wasn’t long until we saw the bikers coming around the curve bringing a cloud of dust with them. It was basically the same scene all over again as far as we could tell. We couldn’t see much farther than the edge of our porch. We couldn’t see the road at all. Then all of a sudden, out of the cloud of dust we saw a scary sight. A lone motorcycle wheel sped past the porch and smacked right into the very tree where we had been playing only a few minutes earlier.

I don’t remember if the guy whose motorcycle lost the wheel was hurt or not, but I do remember telling my kids that story when teaching them about obeying their parents. My grandmother raised us, so she was our parent. God tells us to obey our parents (Ephesians 6:1, Colossians 3:20, Exodus 20:12). Our aunt, our grandmother’s sister, helped her in our raising as well. Plus, we were taught back then to respect our elders.

If we had not listened and gotten away from that tree, we might have gotten hurt. Maybe pretty bad. That was a big wheel, and it smacked that tree pretty hard. I miss being a kid. I miss living in that little house, and I miss my grandmother. I’m looking forward to that day when Jesus comes to restore everything back to the perfect condition he created it in, In The Beginning. My anticipation grows stronger every day.

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BILLY AND HIS STRANGE PET

Billy was a sad little boy. He was only eight years old but, a lot of bad things had already happened to him. His parents had given him away when he was only three. He was abused in foster care and was bullied and picked on in school. He was full of anger, fear, and confusion, but even with all that going on inside him, he was still able to show love.

He really loved animals. He especially loved those he had been able to keep as his own. Dogs, cats, rabbits, opossums, and even some mice. He loved his pets so much that he didn’t think of them as possessions, but as friends. But it seemed like every pet Billy ever loved had died, or was somehow taken away from him.

One of his cats was killed by a car. Another cat just came up missing. One of his dogs died from a terrible disease. He had a little puppy named Sparky that he loved so, so much. But one morning, when he went out to play with his little friend, he found he had died, too. Billy’s heart was broken again. Then there was his dog Dee Cee. Billy loved him as much as he had loved Sparky. He was always waiting for Billy when he would get home from school in the afternoon. He would run to meet Billy and jump into his arms and lick his face. Then they would run and play until they were both exhausted. One day when he came home from school, Dee Cee wasn’t there to meet him. He searched for him for what seemed like forever. Then, day turned to night, and days turned to weeks. He never saw his best friend again. His heart was broken once more.

He had been hurt so many times. Not only by losing his pets he had loved so much, but also by the people in his life. He decided that he had had enough. He didn’t want to be hurt again. He became cold and distant. For a while, he didn’t even want a pet, but he was so lonely. Eventually, he decided to give it another try. He had to choose this pet wisely, so he thought and thought about it for a long time. What kind of pet would be the best for him? He thought and thought some more.

Then he saw it. It had been there all the time, right in front of him. He had played with it before and he knew that it would be the perfect pet for him. It wasn’t like any of the pets he had before. It had a long neck and a long body. Its head was wide and it had a big mouth. It wasn’t at all pretty, but he had found the perfect pet. A pet shovel. Billy thought to himself, “the beauty of having a pet shovel is that you don’t have to worry about it dying and leaving you alone.” When you want to play, it will always be there and it won’t get tired and lay down, or run off and leave you when another shovel comes around. It will never get angry and yell at you, or abandon you, or abuse you in any way. No sir. This pet would never break his heart. How could it?

Billy loved his pet shovel and took good care of it and carried it everywhere he went. He washed it and cleaned it. He petted it and talked to it, and he even fed it. Now, what does a pet shovel eat? Dirt, of course. Billy spared no expense. He went straight to the flower garden. “Only the best dirt for you”, he told his new best friend. “Only the best.”

There are many people in this world like Billy. People who have had a bad life and feel they have nowhere to turn, and no one to turn to without finding more pain. But thankfully, when he was older, Billy met someone he could trust. Someone who would love him unconditionally and would always be there for him and would never let him down. No, I’m not talking about his pet shovel. I’m talking about Jesus.

Jesus is always there for us. No matter where we are, where we’ve been, or what we’ve done, Jesus loves us and will never leave us. He loves us so much that he came down to earth from heaven and died to redeem us from the curse of sin. He bought us back with his blood. Not so he could own us, or boss us around, but so we could live forever with him as friends.

There will always be pain and disappointments in this life. People we know and love may say or do things that hurt us. Our pets and family members may die or leave us, but, no matter how bad things get in life, no matter how bad or worthless we may feel, Jesus is always there to help us make it through it. He promises us he will never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). He wants to be your friend. All you have to do is accept his friend request. He’s waiting for you right now.

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FEAR

It was four o’clock in the morning. We were startled from sleep by our four-year-old son who was scared. He said he had seen a huge mouse in the hall while on his way to the bathroom. “It looked like a Guinea Pig,” he said, with tears in his voice. I thought to myself, “That’s a big mouse.” I told him to go on to the bathroom. I said, “A mouse won’t hurt you. He’s as much afraid of you as you are of him.” I was wrong. As he started out the door he let out a horrifying scream. He turned and jumped from the door onto the bed. I’ve never seen anyone that small jump so far in my life. He was hysterical. My wife and I tried to calm him down. Just then, we heard our oldest son call from the living room that one of our hamsters was out. So, I got out of bed and started searching for the “huge mouse that looked like a Guinea Pig.” We finally found her in the bathroom and put her back in her cage. Then we all went back to sleep.

I’m sure the fear our son was experiencing was brought on by several different factors. I’m sure it came partially from his being so young and inexperienced, and from thinking there was an animal in his home that wasn’t supposed to be there. Some of our biggest fears come from a lack of knowledge; Fear of the unknown.

When we’re young we’re innocent and trusting. It doesn’t take long for fear to develop in us though. As we get older we learn not to fear certain things we once did, but at the same time, other fears develop in us. Life throws so many things at us and we can’t always dodge them all. But, as we learn to trust God, we begin to understand that he knows all, and he is watching over us and protecting us. Then, we can have peace and not be afraid when we find ourselves in situations we don’t understand. 2 Timothy 1:7 says “For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

The Bible says fear doesn’t come from God. Satan and his evil angels are the ones who cause us to be afraid. There is no limit to the different things they can use to accomplish their goals, but I think visual media is the number one way they put fear into the hearts of humans. TV, movies, and video games are among the top ways I see this happening, and people keep watching stories about ghosts, zombies, vampires, and demons and they have no clue that these things are opening doorways for demons to enter their lives. No wonder people have so much fear today. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Psalm 118:6 says, “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear.” 
Isaiah 12:2 says, “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid:”

We need a close, personal relationship with God. This doesn’t just happen. We have to be intentional about it, just like in a marriage. You have to work at any relationship. The Bible is clear that God wants a close relationship with us. Prayer, reading, and studying the Bible every day will help us to get to know Jesus as our friend, our Lord, and our Savior. When we allow him to live in our hearts, he will give us peace of mind and banish all fear from our lives.

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© 2015 Teddy Lynn – All Rights Reserved

My books are available in paperback and digital format on Amazon @
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