You would have had to have been there to truly understand my understanding and feelings about the evil that is behind Halloween. It’s not the act of dressing up and collecting candy that our sweet children and grandchildren participate in that bothers me, but what the day itself represents and what is behind this day. But I will not participate even in the sweetness of my grandchildren as they dress up in their costumes to celebrate this day. 

So where is it that I say you would have had to of been … read on if you will … it’s not a pretty story … but has a great ending!

I truly had no clue what it was that I was inviting into my life on that day when I sat down at the table, pen in hand above the paper, waiting for something to happen … and it did happen. In innocence … in the understanding of the difference between good and evil … unknowingly I let evil in. That day was the beginning of a change in my life … one that I would need rescue from. 

I was a wife and a mom of three beautiful girls. I led a group of children at the Paso Robles Rec Center. I was a regular person, a normal part of society … but at home I would write … and write and write … not my words, but words that came from a realm I knew nothing about. When I wasn’t writing, this thing would speak to me in my mind … it would tell me things … it would tell me that it was doing the things I was doing … putting on makeup, etc. It would try to speak to me by making my hands move or by physically trying to move me. It tried to control what I would eat. It tried to make me go home when I was out in town because it wanted me to write … because that is what gave this thing life. I don’t remember how long this went on … weeks, months … no longer than that.

There were things in my life that lead me to sitting at the table that one fateful day. Questions, hurts … a need for understanding. Questions about love and how someone who professes love could do the things they do. It was the need in me for answers that kept me writing. Until that one day, May 15, 1987 … we were going to celebrate my youngest daughter’s third birthday the next day. My sister in law June and her daughter Rachel were at our house to celebrate. I was writing … I was decorating … I was getting ready for the party. This thing was bothering me … talking to me … on paper … it told me to divorce Jim and to give him the children. To tell him that night. I said no … it was a struggle … it really wanted me to tell him … I wouldn’t … it began to suffocate me … I couldn’t breathe … I was scared … I told it I would tell Jim the next day … I was a mom … I had things to do … I loved Jim … I wanted my children … I didn’t want a divorce. 

The next day something was different … I didn’t feel well … not a sickness … but my body was off … I felt like I had movement all throughout my body … 

I called my sister who had helped me in the beginning to get started in this automatic handwriting. She told me that I had done something wrong and that I had gotten ahold of the devil. As soon as the words left her mouth I knew it was true and I was scared. 

Everything inside of me seemed to be moving … the feeling was horrible … scary … my sister in law, June seemed to understand. She rebuked the devil and stayed by my side. I had to get out … I had to get out of the house. We left for a while and I began to feel a bit better. So we went home and did the birthday party successfully. And I felt horrible … it was all moving … I didn’t know what, but something inside my body felt horrible … it was moving and making me feel terrible. I had to get out of the house … away from everyone. Jim stayed with the girls and 

June took me for a drive. We drove over to Pioneer Park and parked under a tree. June prayed for me … I all of a sudden knew I needed to go to a church. June said she would take me home and Jim would take me. 

In the meantime at home, Jim had called his parents who had been Christians his whole life. They told him what I knew, that we needed to get to a church. Jim’s Dad wanted to talk to me and asked me what was going on so I told him. He said that Jesus could help me. I believed him. He asked me if I wanted to accept Jesus as my Savior. I said yes. I didn’t know what any of this meant, but I trusted him and he said Jesus could help and I needed help really badly. 

Jim called church after church. It was a Saturday, and so no one was answering. He left messages on machines for pretty much every church in our area … Finally, we called the last one on the list … Atascadero Foursquare Church … but this one had the pastor’s home phone listed, so I called it. 

A lady answered the phone. I told her that I thought I had a demon in me. She said, “Oh, my husband’s real good at that.” And that he was at the church but would be home in about thirty minutes and she’d have him call me when he got there. Our phone rang within the next ten minutes and her husband, Pastor Tom Gaddis was on the line. He asked me what was going on and then told me that we could come to the church. 

I didn’t know the struggle there would be just to get me in the car, or the fear of being thrown out of the car that would overtake me as we drove the ten miles from Paso Robles to Atascadero, or the struggle Jim would have getting me to walk into the church as my body fought him every step of the way. Words came out of my mouth that I’d never spoken before, cussing and yelling at both Jim and Pastor Tom. I was asked to confess my sins. I confessed every sin I could think of. Every time a sin came to mind, my head would shake back and forth as though this thing didn’t want me to say them out loud. I said them anyway. I was determined to be free! 

I didn’t know there would be a physical struggle between Jim and I as this thing tried to get away from him and Pastor Tom. I was confused and scared. 

Pastor Tom continued to say Bible verses and tell the devil to leave. He was talking about what Jesus did on the cross and talking about His blood. At some point, my body seemed to relax and the whole room became peaceful. Pastor Tom said I was free. I got up off the floor and sat on the couch. He told us some Bible verses that talk about the freedom that Jesus gives and about the peace that I can have with Jesus. I believed him. 

Jesus set me free and saved me on that sixteenth day of May in 1987. He changed my life. He really and truly saved me. I didn’t know on that night so long ago that I was free … the battle continued on … it was two years of fighting the feelings in my body and the movement of my hands and feet and the thoughts in my head before I could pronounce in the church that I was FREE! 

Little did I know that that innocent thing I did would be the thing that gripped my life. 

Little did I know that through Jesus there is salvation … new life … freedom … peace …