Creepy Man

Creepy Man first entered my life in mid-April. He showed up at about midnight in my bedroom, standing by the bookshelf on the wall opposite my bed. I was in that waking-up phase where subconcious and reality overlap, so his presence -- complete with eyes that gleamed with maliciousness and a grin that would make anyone's blood run cold -- was fairly concrete. The yell that automatically escaped my mouth was the kind you do in dreams, where you're terrified by something but can make no other sound than a deep, gutteral, manly shout. It was attractive, let me tell you...but Creepy Man disappeared immediately, and I was able to sleep again just a few minutes later.
A month went by without incident. Then, in mid-May, my eyes were barely opening one dark night, and there he was again! This time, I could only see his face hovering above the foot of my bed with blankets slowly waving all around it. A sense of authority filled me almost as quickly as the fear, and I yelled "Go away!" or something to that effect. He did. Now fully awake, a tired, victorious smile stretched across my face and I said "Thank you Jesus" before falling immediately back to sleep.
Neither time had my manly shouts aroused anyone else in the house. Neither time had I been too scared to fall back asleep.
Then we were in mid-June.
I had gone to bed early. Aubree was in the next room, talking to her mom on the phone.
About an hour into my sleep, Creepy Man showed up right overtop of my face. This time, the maliciousness in his eyes was accompanied by an evil excitement over what was about to happen to me...that's the only way I can describe it...and somehow I felt my blankets being pulled away. I began to scream, and I continued to scream, and the scream rose in pitch and volume and intensity, but Creepy Man didn't leave until I pulled my blankets over my face. Then I was fully awake. I sat up, turned on the lamp, and realized I was shaking like I'd just come in from minus-forty weather. My chest hurt from how much my heart was racing, and my throat was sore from the bloodcurdling scream that had ripped through it.
Right away I went across to Aubree so she could know that everything was fine. She had been more than a little startled. Actually, the quality of my scream had led her to wonder if someone was actually in my room, and she was terrified. But we were both able to laugh about it, even though my shaking continued for hours.
She went to bed. I stayed up for awhile longer and did some research on night terrors so I could figure out if that's what I was having. Apparently, yes...a form of them anyway. (And they call figures like Creepy Man "bedroom visitors". What a lovely title.) I was a little disheartened to learn that they are fairly uncommon in adulthood, and often indicative of a mental disorder, like split personality. But they also had the idea that it can just be repressed emotions, so I decided to go with that.
I have since had a few friends give their opinions on what Creepy Man means. One idea is that he is actually something positive that I see as negative, and that's why he appears in such evil form to me. The next time he shows, I should calmly ask him what he wants, or give him a hug or something. Or else this could be the rageful side of me taking form in a subconcious way, but I doubt that. My rage gets plenty of healthy release when I'm driving.
HOWEVER, I am happy to report that July is almost over and Creepy Man has not shown up. He was on a fairly regular schedule, so I'm hoping a missed appointment means that he's really finished.

I think one reason we're so afraid to look in the mirror is that we know we'll see something we're not prepared to give up. Deep down, we all know the patterns (internal or external) that make up the wall between ourselves and our God. Most of these patterns started as a type of security blanket, a way to deal with stuff in our lives that keeps painful realities or overwhelming emotions at bay. But often, they also hold us back from accepting the presence of God, the love that He is more than ready to pour into us.

Even knowing this, we don't want to see our spiritual condition for what it has become. Even knowing that freedom waits on the other side, we don't want to give up the patterns we have come to "need", even enjoy. We're not ready for the inevitable battle. In a sense, we don't believe it can be won until we're good enough. No warrior enters the battle broken, meek, and humbled. That's why God's Kingdom is so backwards...until we get to that point, we're not fit to fight. Otherwise we're fighting in our own strength, and that only goes so far. When we're broken enough to admit our need for God's armour; when we're meek enough to admit our need for His power; when we're humbled enough to admit our need for His wisdom -- then we're ready for battle.

It takes courage to come before God in the knowledge that our condition will be reflected off of His purity in such a way that we can no longer ignore or rationalize it. But His Word tells us to "... approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" (Heb. 4:16). Could He invite us any more lovingly?