I’ll never forget our one-year wedding anniversary. Andrew’s parents surprised us with a one-night stay at the Langham, a prestigious hotel in charming downtown Pasadena, California, as our anniversary gift. We were young, broke newlyweds, so it was a huge upgrade from our small, cluttered apartment. The tall, historic building was surrounded by acres of beautiful landscaping. We were walking on air as we checked into our room, giddy even, holding hands, full of anticipation for a special night together. Joy felt close; fear felt miles away.
We dropped off our bags in our room, changed into our fancy clothes, and headed downstairs for dinner. Dinner was delectable, and the waitstaff went above and beyond to make the night special for us, surprising us with champagne and a dessert plate adorned with a chocolate-lettered “happy anniversary.” It was picture perfect. We were madly in love, crazy about each other, and the night kept getting better.
After dinner we went back to our room. Andrew wanted to take a shower, so I turned on the TV to watch a show. Then something changed. Joy began to slip away, and fear filled the atmosphere.
I heard a noise that, at first, I thought was coming from the TV, but the noise grew louder. I pressed the Mute button and realized it wasn’t the TV at all. “Drew, is that you?” My stomach sank, my heart began to race as my body filled with fear. Why was he crying? What in the world was going on?
I rushed into the bathroom, pulled back the shower curtain, and there he was, on the floor of the shower, curled up in the fetal position, shaking, terrified, and crying hysterically. “Andrew? Oh my God, Andrew! What’s wrong? What’s going on? What happened?” I was stunned and confused. How could everything shift so radically? I knelt down on the floor next to the tub and began to gently rub his back. The water was still running; streams of water rolled down his back as tears ran down his face.
My mind immediately went to his dad, Dave, who had been diagnosed with aggressive leukemia just a few weeks earlier and was in the middle of fighting for his life in the hospital. Maybe Andrew was just having an emotional moment. Grief can be unpredictable. But I quickly realized that this wasn’t grief. This was different. Andrew wasn’t sad; he was scared. When he finally calmed down enough to talk, he described in detail an encounter he’d had with a dark presence he called a “creature.” I stopped rubbing his back. Full of confusion and fear, I sat on the cold tile floor, unsure what to do next. I began to look around the room. I didn’t see any “creature.”
“What do you mean a ‘creature’? Andrew, what are you talking about? There isn’t anything in the shower. You were the only one in here; I don’t understand.” He started crying again and shaking. I wasn’t helping. I was making it worse. So I did the only thing I knew to do—I prayed. “God, I don’t know what’s going on, but I pray your presence would overwhelm this room right now. Whatever Andrew saw, I pray in the name of Jesus for it to leave; it has no power here. In Jesus’ mighty name, amen.”
I turned off the shower, grabbed a towel from the counter, and slowly helped Andrew stand to his feet. I carefully wrapped the towel around him and held his body close to mine as we walked toward the bed. “Are you okay? What do you need? What can I do for you?”
He pulled the covers up over his body, closed his eyes, took a long, deep breath, and then opened them again. “I’m okay. That was really scary. I’m still confused, but I feel better. Thank you for praying for me—that really helped.”
What was supposed to be a night to remember had quickly turned into a night I hoped I would forget.
Darkness and Light
I grew up going to church. I read stories about the spiritual realm in the Bible, and I believe it is all real. But Andrew’s experience had been too real, too close to home. I wish I could say he never had another encounter with darkness, but I can’t. Throughout our marriage, Andrew continued to be taunted relentlessly. Sometimes Andrew would tell me about it, but other times he wouldn’t. Maybe he even felt like he couldn’t. Maybe he didn’t want to acknowledge it was real either. He was burdened by a darkness difficult to fully understand.
Every day there is an invisible war raging all around us. A war between good and evil, darkness and light, and we live in the tension. As different people with different upbringings, we may have different understandings of darkness and demons, but I think most people agree there is evil in this world, and it is truly dark. I learned through Scripture to refer to the ruler of the darkness as the devil or the Enemy. In my mind, the Enemy’s desire is simple: to replace the light, God’s beauty and love, with darkness.
The darkness and the light we encounter are supernatural. They are often unexplainable because they are beyond the physical and observable universe. After all, having faith is supernatural in itself. To never see God yet believe he’s real. To never experience heaven yet believe it’s waiting for us when we die. To never have witnessed the resurrection of Jesus yet believe it really happened. Faith is trusting the promises of God and believing what he says in his Word is true. If we can acknowledge these supernatural beliefs in the light, then why do we sometimes shy away from believing the darkness? Are we afraid that by bringing it up we will invite the darkness in? Do we think that if we ignore it completely it will just leave us alone?
Whatever the reason, downplaying the Enemy is dangerous. He’s real, and his darkness plagues humanity. He wants to distract us, isolate us, scare us, and threaten us. He whispers questions that make us doubt.
Is this whole God thing even real?
Am I ever going to get better?
Wouldn’t everyone just be better off without me?
Does God really care about me?
Do my friends really care about me?
What’s the point of all this anyway?
When we rise up, when we chase after the light, the darkness will continue to bombard us. We may think that because we believe in Jesus, we are somehow immune to the Enemy’s persecution, but that’s not true. Rather, 1 Peter 5:8–9 reveals that “the Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping,” and we must “keep a firm grip on the faith” (THE MESSAGE).
We’re in a battle of good and evil, darkness and light, life and death. It’s why news outlets stay in business; it’s why there is never a lack of sad stories or world crises. This place we call home is broken. It’s been broken and busted since the beginning, since that very first bite of the forbidden fruit. And the brokenness doesn’t just tear us apart—it breaks God’s heart. That’s why he sent his one and only Son to save us forever. But God’s story isn’t over. We live in the meantime. He isn’t finished writing his story or yours or mine. He knows how this all plays out, and we each get to play our part. That’s why we must live with an awareness of the things we cannot see.
The Wilderness
Jesus knew all about this battle. Before his ministry even began, the Enemy tried to distract him from the calling God had placed on his life. We know that immediately after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, the Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tested. He prepared for the test by fasting for forty days and forty nights, and he was hungry. (I love how the Bible so clearly reminds us of Jesus’ humanity: his hunger makes him human. If we fasted for forty days, we would be hungry too.) That’s when we see the Enemy step into the ministry of Jesus for the first time. He said to Jesus, “Since you are God’s Son, speak the word that will turn these stones into loaves of bread” (Matt. 4:3 THE MESSAGE).
Jesus responded, quoting Deuteronomy: “It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth” (v. 4).
Isn’t it interesting how the Enemy approached Jesus with a question? Hasn’t this always been his tactic? When he first stepped on the scene with Adam and Eve, in the place where perfect fell apart, he asked them, “Did God really say . . . ?” (Gen. 3:1, emphasis mine). This is what the Enemy does. He waits, he watches, and then he attacks. He waited forty days before he ever said anything to Jesus. He watched Jesus grow hungry and tired. Then he attacked Jesus right where his pain was the worst, taunting: “Since you are God’s Son, speak the word that will turn these stones into loaves of bread.”
How we respond to temptation determines our destination. If we lean into temptation, it will lead us to places we do not want to go. It will lead us away from the promises of God, away from the people we love the most, and away from our potential and our purpose. But how do we know whose voice we are listening to? How do we know if the still, small whisper is God or the Enemy?
I believe the distinction lies in the tone. The voice of God will never put us down. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and invite the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, we receive a new inner compass, new strong convictions, and a new everlasting encourager whose goal isn’t to destroy but to edify. Edify comes from the Latin aedes, meaning “house” or “temple.”1 If our body is a temple—or house—then we are all fixer-uppers; we all need a master constructer who is willing to do a good work in us. None of us has arrived in this life; we are all a work in progress. Sometimes we need only a bathroom remodel; other times our walls need to be torn down and replaced with a new framework. But like any good HGTV show, the big reveal at the end, where we compare the before to the after, will shock and awe everyone, including us, as we look over the handiwork of the One who designed it all. God wants us to open the front door and invite him in to do the work. And guess what? He’s already paid the price, so he’s willing to work for free.
The Enemy, on the other hand, wants to tear the house down. He wants to take our fixer-upper and make it the worst house in the neighborhood. He wants to build new walls that completely surround the exterior so no one can get in. He wants to close the shutters, pull the drapes, and leave us locked up in the dark. His goal isn’t to edify—it’s to terrify. His voice is the voice of discouragement. It’s the voice that says we aren’t good enough, we aren’t qualified, and we will never amount to anything. It’s the voice that whispers, “You’re ugly, you’re unlovable, you’re helpless, you’re useless, your life is pointless.” It’s the voice of destruction, not instruction. It’s the loud inner critic whose expectations are so high, we will never reach them.
While the Enemy sets the bar way too high, God goes low to sit beside us. I believe God’s voice might sound like this: “There are no expectations; I love you just the way you are. You don’t need to earn my love, you don’t need to have it all together, you don’t need to prove anything to me.” He is the God of acceptance, not rejection. He would give up whole nations to save any one of our lives (Isa. 43:4). That’s the kind of God we serve. He doesn’t want to lead us astray; he wants to lead us in his way. He doesn’t want to victimize, terrorize, or marginalize; instead he seeks to empathize, revise, and revolutionize our lives.
Another Encounter
The darkness continued to pursue Andrew relentlessly. He would often experience encounters with the darkness in his dreams, and this became magnified during his battle with depression and anxiety. Throughout our last summer together Andrew would often recount the terrifying dreams in detail to me. Each time his eyes would open wide, and as he spoke I could sense the fear in his voice and his eyes. There was a war raging inside his mind, and it wasn’t just physical or chemical, it was also spiritual. It was a deadly combination of mental illness and spiritual warfare, and it was spiraling out of control.
But Andrew was determined to win. He was running to God, clinging to the promises he knew to be true. Declaring “God’s Got This,” even in his weakest moments. His faith, though tired and weary, was still intact, and it gave me hope. Andrew wanted nothing more than to have his life back. He wanted to be back in the saddle, back in his sweet spot, back in his calling, back in the position he loved as lead pastor. So, with a green light from the doctors and the board of directors, we made a plan. After nearly four months of rest on the sabbatical, Andrew would return to work on August 1, 2018, and he would ease back into his responsibilities as lead pastor of our church. Andrew seemed excited and eager to lead again. He knew his comeback would be special, and he was planning to tackle the topic of mental illness head-on in a message series he titled “Hot Mess.”
Just before his big return, Andrew had another encounter with the darkness, and this time it wasn’t in his dreams. I was sitting on our front porch watching the boys play in our long driveway when my phone buzzed. It was a text from Andrew that read, “Five creatures surrounding me right now in my room. Each one has a meaning. Each one talking, taking turns. I’m praying them away. Might need some spiritual prayers to help. God is more powerful. God’s got this. But I am scared in this moment.”
I dropped my phone on the porch and ran through the house, down the long hallway, and back to our bedroom. I flung open the door, and there he was, the man I loved, absolutely paralyzed by fear. He was lying on the bed, he had the sheet pulled up over his head, and he was curled in a ball, trembling. I gently pulled back the covers, kissed his sweaty brow, and laid my hand on his chest. “Babe, what’s going on? Are you okay? I got your text. What can I do to help?” He didn’t respond.
I looked around the room and didn’t see any dark creatures; in my spirit I didn’t feel any evil presence. So many thoughts swirled through my mind. Is this all in his head? Is he experiencing some sort of hallucination? Is this really spiritual warfare? I didn’t have answers, but I knew I could do what I had always done since that very first encounter: pray.
I was in over my head in so many ways. All three of our boys came into our bedroom. They were beginning to jump on the bed. They missed their daddy; we all missed him. He spent countless hours alone in the bedroom, and it seemed like there wasn’t anything we could do to make it better. I calmed the boys down, held them tight, asked each one to place their hands on their dad, and we prayed. We prayed hard. I was angry with God, I was angry with our circumstances, and I was confused. I hated the darkness. I hated these attacks. I hated the games the Enemy seemed to be playing in my husband’s mind. I prayed hard, and I called reinforcements.
I called one of my best friends to pray for him, then I called and invited some members from our staff to come over to the house to pray. If this was spiritual warfare and the Enemy wasn’t going to back down, I wasn’t either. We couldn’t live like this anymore.
The staff members arrived with anointing oil, and together we stopped and prayed over every room in our home. Then we circled Andrew, anointed him with oil, and each prayed for freedom and healing in his life. I wish I could say we saw miracles that day and Andrew was healed on the spot, but he wasn’t. The prayers of my friends, just like the prayers I had been praying all summer, seemed to fall flat. In my heart I cried out to God in desperation. I begged for breakthrough and healing in our home.
The Wilderness
Whenever I remember how lost and confused I felt in the wilderness of Andrew’s fear, mental illness, and spiritual warfare, I can’t help but think about Jesus as he, too, faced the Enemy in a wilderness. How did he respond? And did the Enemy just leave him alone? We know the Enemy waited, watched, and attacked him right where it hurt—in his hunger and pain—but then what?
For the second test the Devil took him to the Holy City. He sat him on top of the Temple and said, “Since you are God’s Son, jump.” The Devil goaded him by quoting Psalm 91: “He has placed you in the care of angels. They will catch you so that you won’t so much as stub your toe on a stone.”
Jesus countered with another citation from Deuteronomy: “Don’t you dare test the Lord your God.”
For the third test, the Devil took him to the peak of a huge mountain. He gestured expansively, pointing out all the earth’s kingdoms, how glorious they all were. Then he said, “They’re yours—lock, stock, and barrel. Just go down on your knees and worship me, and they’re yours.”
Jesus’ refusal was curt: “Beat it, Satan!” He backed his rebuke with a third quotation from Deuteronomy: “Worship the Lord your God, and only him. Serve him with absolute single-heartedness.”
The Test was over. The Devil left. (Matt. 4:5–11 THE MESSAGE)
The Enemy didn’t leave Jesus alone right away. It took three different interactions, three separate tests, before he left. Jesus, the Son of God, surely could have snapped his fingers and made the Enemy disappear in an instant, but he didn’t. I don’t know why he didn’t, but I’m grateful he didn’t because I think we can learn from Jesus how to respond in the face of our own trials. Instead of entertaining the ideas the Enemy was throwing his way, Jesus pulled wisdom from another wilderness story: the story of the Israelites wandering in the desert from the book of Deuteronomy.
I can see so much of my story in Jesus’ temptation because the Enemy didn’t back down for Andrew and me either. I’ve discovered that the Enemy is relentless. The Enemy will always try to find a way to invade our peace. Our greatest task as followers of Jesus is to understand the heart of God, a heart that is full of love and only love. Then we can know that fear, isolation, and despair are not from God. That despite the swirling, terrifying chaos of our broken world or minds, we have a calm, quiet place to dwell.
Even when Andrew was terrified and confused, he knew God’s love was greater than his fear. He was still willing to declare, “God’s got this.” And I think that’s really brave. To paraphrase author and adventurer Bear Grylls, perhaps being brave doesn’t mean we are never afraid; perhaps being brave means being afraid but finding a way through it.
The Enemy wants us to feel isolated, unloved, and worthless. But the truth is this: every life matters, every story matters, and each and every one of us is loved and valued more than we could ever imagine. God wants to write a beautiful story through each of our lives. No matter who we are, no matter our past, no matter our mistakes, and no matter our mental health, he is with us, he is for us, and he is on our side.