14 November 2008

The EVIL House.

Ever sit down and talk to a missionary who serves in a faraway land? Ever hear strange stories about the power of God, and of evil? Yes, I've seen the wackos on TV claiming that God can give you gold dental fillings if Pastor Richdude touches the prayer cloth you send in with your "best gift" of $2,000 or more. No, I mean... real missionaries. People who have given up just about everything you could think of to go live somewhere just about nobody wants to live.

I've heard stories. Usually they're not as dramatic as the ones you hear ninteenth-hand about the minute the church in the US prayed, this big legion of angels scared natives away who were planning a raid on missionary settlements. And there were the exact number of angels as there were praying on the carpet at Whatever Baptist Church at 3 p.m., etc. That story's about as overused as the preaching on the frog-in-the-pot. But I've heard dramatic stories about people who really ARE demon-possessed, and the spiritual darkness you can just FEEL in some places of the world from some missionaries, and even laypeople. Go ahead and laugh.

But I have been in a place like that.

In Kearney, Missouri.

No, really. I'm not given to weird stories and claiming victory for Jesus by marching around affected buildings seven times and that kinda stuff. But one day, when I was househunting with my husband about 12 years ago, I encountered a house with something in it.

We were househunting this way: One of us would go in while the other stayed in the car or yard with our small children, Patrick and G. Then we'd switch so both of us would get a chance to look at the place without our children making silly comments or getting into the cabinets. So I went into a place with my realtor.

Have you ever just KNOWN someone was staring at you, and felt uncomfortable? Well, oh, it was odd... but there in the living room, I could FEEL something staring at me. It was as if someone were standing RIGHT IN FRONT of me and glaring. I wanted to back out, but thought I was a silly. Because stuff like that isn't real. The living room looked totally normal, but the carpeting was a bit outdated and the curtains were those old thick plastic-lined ones with the tweedy fabric on the side facing indoors. Icky, but hardly anything to freak out about.

Silly me.

Further into the house, I'm doing a little chat with myself. I mean, I REALLY like the layout. The kitchen and living areas flow around in a circle through to the TV room. You know the older houses I'm talking about like that. And then a stairway upstairs and a doorway down to the basement. Looking back, my, was everything dated. But that sort of thing really doesn't bother me so much as it does other people. In fact, it's kinda nostalgic to see those white countertops with the goldy flecks in them. You remember when that stuff was en vogue.

But the basement was ... something. I have never seen the like ever before or since. Maybe I wasn't so silly.

The walls were painted black. Skulls were drawn on the walls. There were black candles and blood drawn on the walls. Some sort of table with things on it and my mind has blocked out what on earth it was. I just remember it bothered me. The realtor was a bit uncomfortable and started to talk about a nice coat of paint and you could let your kids play down there. He was shifting funny on his feet when he said it, too.

I started thinking of getting my pastor to please walk through the house with me with the anointing oil and pray, pray, pray. I mean, no weapon formed against us can prosper and all that. It was a good price, even if it smelled vaguely of pot.

Outside, there were a couple teenagers and neighbourhood kids hanging out with their parents. They looked like normal enough people, though these parents let their children draw on their clothes and smoke. But otherwise about like anyone else. I liked the house and the neighbourhood and told D maybe we should make an offer and then call the pastor?

D hated the place. He thought I was nuts for even suggesting it. He said, you know, it isn't so much the place, because the PLACE is nice, but there are probably all kinds of people used to hanging out around here. Well, he's probably right on that one. Ok, then, on to the next house on our list...

But ever since then, our car didn't work right. We even had the GM dealership servicepeople working on the phone with National Headquarters trying to figure out what on earth was wrong. The house is evil, D tells me, and it messed up the car. I'd be inclined to agree with him though I know how SILLY that sounds. Imagine, scary house killing your car. I mean, that's silly.

But if you were there, maybe you would believe me that it's at least possible. It was very creepy. D refuses to even drive down that street EVER AGAIN because of the power he thinks that evil house has. And that was TWELVE YEARS AGO.

Now, I don't get "into" stuff like that. I've never called people over to look for ghosts or thrown up demons in a bucket or any of the really weird stuff you might be thinking about. It wasn't like I started my day just then looking for the paranormal.

Anyway...

Can I tell you about another house? This one is up the street from me. NO ONE on our street would even be paid to live there, so far as I know. It is, as my Catholic neighbour put it once, jinxed. EVERY family that has ever lived there for 40-odd years has gotten a messy divorce or one of the spouses killed themselves. OK, it's a bad place to my knowledge, but I've never been in it. I just know what people have lived in it over the last 12 years or so haven't been upstanding citizens of the community. I'm not sure that the house is jinxed, or if it's just that the house keeps going up for sale and it's a bargain... and you know, if someone just shot themselves in the house before you bought it, you'll get it for cheap.

Thoughts?

14 comments:

  1. When I travelled overseas I was in some places that were weird & scarey, & yes, evil. And I've seen stuff...I don't want to write a book in your comments but basically there is a war going on unseen behind our backs. Scripture tells us that much. God is his grace & mercy keeps us blind to most of it ~ & a good thing too!

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  2. Always feel free to write books, Ganeida. I wrote one in the post, so it's only fair.

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  3. I totally believe you. I have heard first person accounts of demon activity from people who are not nutty types. I have a Christian friend who lives in Israel...her husband has been *nearly* attacked when he travels to other countries to deliver Bibles. In one case, the man about to attack was held back...it looked like *someone* was holding his shoulders back as he pushed against them to try to get to my friend's husband. It wasn't until he got in his car and drove away that the man was released, screaming and yelling (and cursing, I'm sure).

    (I'm writing a book, here). Another friend knew she shouldn't marry the man who she had had two children with. She was a believer who had fallen away for awhile, but was coming back to the Lord. As she was getting ready for her wedding, her cousin had to leave the room because she says she saw demons swirling in the air above my friend's head (She didn't tell her until later). 12 years later, she is still married to an unbelieving man who passively fights everything she's teaching her kids about God (and boy, does she teach them a lot).

    Have you read "This Present Darkness," and other books in that series by Frank Peretti? Despite the fact they are fiction, they really made me aware of the battle that goes on in the spirit world all around us. I think about that when I drive by a psychic's shop, or an adult book store, or Hooter's, for gosh sakes. I can imagine the demons swirling around above them, enjoying the sin. Yuck.

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  4. See, and I think THERE is where Christians and feminists have a lot in common. The "objectification of women" is just plain old wrong.

    But anyway.

    I was just looking up "In the Name of Satan" to see if Frank Peretti were the one that wrote this book that I looked at years ago and thought was totally wacky-doodle. OK, it isn't. But it was a catchy title, and I like to think I'm an open-minded person and read lots of things that are not necessarily theologically sound.

    You know, since all this talk of Obama being just like Hitler surfaced, I have even started to read Mein Kampf. Well, in English.

    I am sure I delight and confuse the FBI people tracking my moves online and at the library checkout LOL!

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  5. I totally believe in spiritual warfare, in angels and demons, in demon possessions and territorial spirits. I've seen demons manifest in a person and have helped to cast them out.

    Nothing in your stories seems wacky to me.

    People don't realize that God was speaking totally literally when He said that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the ruler of the darkness of this age. The Bible has a lot to say on this subject, but most Christians sort of skip over those parts to things that make us feel warm and cozy.

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  6. I dont think you seem wacky at all. I lived in a house that I always got that feeling in. When hubby would go to work at night I would cry because I was scared to be alone. WE ended up finding all kinds of odd little things in the crawl space in the wall and shortly after wards moved out. I could tell you a story about what happened when we left that would creep you out forever but I wont for fear that everyone will think we are nuts. lol

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  7. lol. This topic always makes me want to quote Hamlet.'There are more things in heaven & earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'

    Short version. I have a thing for things celtic. We stopped to visit a henge [not stonhenge but along those lines] & I swear there was evil & power both about that site. It was not nice. Later we were looking at a storage cellage ~ an outside one ~ & I *saw* the people fleeing to hide there from invaders. There was an air of absolute terror.

    Now I'm not fey. I don't go looking for this stuff & I'm usually pretty cynical but occasionaly something happens & stuff breaks through, kwim?

    I know my family & I should have died before our girls were even born. I saw the angels God sent to keep my car on the road so I know there's stuff going on in the spiritual realms we're really not aware of. I don't know why we were spared that day but I do lnw neither of my girls would have ever been born if we hadn't been & who knows the pland God has for them?

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  8. Daja, I agree, but I've also honestly seen "weird stuff" in churches that I think is kinda fake. Some pastors who want to keep control of the congregation would say things like, so n so has a lying spirit or spirit of deception, etc.

    Not that those things DON'T exist, yk??

    Cajunchick, I agree there is so much out there. I wouldn't go out there "looking for it" even if you gave me a whole lot of money. Even just saying God is sovereign... well, yes, He is, but I'd be sober, vigilant, etc. because Satan IS like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

    Though, there may be some special anointing or evangelists who are more able to bear these things. And Jesus Himself said that some of this stuff doesn't work without prayer and fasting. So you need to be ready... but we can't ALWAYS fast either.

    Ganeida, I do believe you. I think there is so much history we don't even know in some places that can come out spiritually. And who knows if the people "invited" these spirits or if they were there already and corrupted the minds of people who were not saved/ didn't know God enough to have defences?

    I don't understand these things. I read my Bible, but don't get "into" them.

    I'm glad those of you commenting don't think I'm nuts, but I'm sure it does sound a bit nuts to some people. I'm at least sane enough to acknowledge that it sounds a little odd.

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  9. I don't think you are nuts at all. I haven't had much first hand experience with this kind of thing, but I think the Bible is clear about it.

    We live about equal distance from three train stations. One of them is the largest in the area. You can find all kind of great shopping and whatnot aroud that area. I, however, avoid going there if possible, bacause I just feel so opressed when I am there. I doesn't feel creepy, really, just heavy, and whenever I come home from shopping there I feel exhausted. Some of the exhaustion is from the crowds, but not all of it.

    I finally got up the nerve to mention it to my husband once, and said, "you too?!" My daughter also mentioned feeling uncomfortable there without any prompting form me.

    Could it be the huge Shinto shrine just a short distance form the station? I don't know for sure, but there is SOMETHING not of this worldly about the place.

    That's my 2 yen.

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  10. Oh boy I believe you. I could tell some stories too.

    A non scary one ghost grew up with us in our turn of the century farmhouse. We would wake up at night with someone knocking on the back door. My dad never believed us kids till one night he woke up to the knock. This was several years after we had first heard it. He told us in later years that the hair stood up on his neck but he never told us when we were kids that he had heard the knocking.

    Us kids just accepted it. We had done some research on the old house and it was built as a country doctors office in 1901. We found hundreds of medicine bottles in the dirt to prove it. The lady doctor was named Mrs Charlestown. When we heard the knock we got so we just chuckled at Mrs Charlestown and rolled over and went back to sleep.

    I just found out from my mom this year that she used to see cupboard doors opening and shutting right in front of her. We lived there for 30 years alongside Mrs Charlestown and it was a friendly coexistence.

    I wont tell you about the non friendly evil things I encountered later in life. Id sooner think of old Mrs Charleston.

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  11. Ganeida:

    If you get follow-up comments by email, CHECK YOUR BLOG! It's all gibberish now.

    Sue, your explanation and your recent posts have been very helpful. I've been given to understand that you pretty well need a Shinto ceremony for everything, including business openings, or people think you're weird. Bless ya.

    Mrs. Darling, I wonder about stuff like the "friendly" ghosts and don't know what to think. Sometimes I wonder if it's demons trying to get us "interested" in the spirit world, or if it is something else altogether. It doesn't make sense that it would REALLY BE the dead person if the Bible says that when we die, we sleep...? What do you think?

    But then I'm guessing what it could be, which is probably not good. :]

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  12. I'm weighing in late, I know, but geographical locations of spiritual strongholds is totally Biblical and real.

    I, however, have been known to be crazy enough to challenge such things with the power of Christ. Probably not the wisest thing to do, but God has grace enough for that too [smile].

    ~Luke

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  13. I bet those evil houses would be great for Halloween. I wonder if kids would ring their doorbells.

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  14. I know the exact feeling you are talking about and I felt it several times as a child. It was extremely scary because it was happening to know one else. Well, it happened to my sisters while they visited their dad in a ghost town. He was into a lot of witchcraft so my sisters would see stuff just float around, watch their sliding door open and shut, see eyes, or just see a book scrape across a table and onto a floor all by itself. It was very frightening for them. My dad has had some crazy experiences in his lifetime but there is one thing that happens to him when something is brought into the home that is not good. He gets bad migraines and gets really sick. Once he finds the source of the problem and throws it out, the migraine is immediately gone. One time he had a boy from overseas that was training at the exact airfield that some of the pilots trained from for 9-11 live with them. This was only 1-2 years before the tragic event happened. My dad started getting really sick. One day he asked the boy if he had a Quran (Koran) in the house. He said he did. My dad said he didn't want it in the house so the boy left. Immediately he felt better and his migraine left.

    So yeah, I'm a big believer in this stuff.

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