Darkness Within Light

We walked into Texas de Brazil in downtown Fort Worth. There is one right down the road from my apartment in North Dallas, however it’s small and silly compared to this one – this one is the legit, original Churrascaria.

“Now, the ‘salad bar’ is pretty much everything from salad to soup to dips and finger food, sea food, sushi, bread, etc. They bring the meat to the table.” I explained.

Aaron held up what looked like a flattened hockey puck at his seat that was red on one side, green on the other. “Don’t tell me this is a stop-and-go marker?”

“Actually it is.”

Everyone laughed and Aaron breathed, “I’m in heaven.”

Chicken, pork, beef, lamb… Protein heaven, indeed.

Our plates full, we all dug in.

I paused for my personal quiet prayer; God, you are sovereign and worthy of all good things, please use this to nourish my body as to serve you better. Please guide me through the day to bring you glory in every situation. Thank you for loving me and Christ for saving me at my worst.

Aaron and Zak noticed the pause. Aaron smiled and said nothing, but Zak seemed to be deep in thought.

“Desiree, what is your hang-up with ghosts?”

Nick choked on his bite of pork and looked from Zak to me and back. Veronique took a long pull on her drink. Holly just sighed and studied her paramesan chicken closely.

I sighed. “Well… it’s complicated. I think they’re extremely, extremely rare.”

Nick raised an eyebrow. “So you are a skeptic!” He turned to Aaron. “Pay up, bro.”

I shook my head and took a sip of my martini. “You can’t be a skeptic when you’ve seen one.”

“Really?”

I put my fork down and sighed. “When I was living out in west Texas I was involved in all kinds of stuff.”

“What kinds of stuff?”

“Fun stuff… and dark stuff. Partying, drug dealing, drug using… I was a damn good hookup. My roommate and I brought in 90% of the area’s coke and ecstasy for three years.”

Holly snorted. “That’s actually how we met.”

“But… Okay, backstory. I grew up in a conservative church that taught behavioral modification more than grace, and God was never real to me… so the ‘Christian’ stuff never stuck."

"No shit," I heard mumbled, though I wasn't sure from whom.

"Through my connections in the drug rings and the underground club scene I met a lot of different people and I got involved in some very dark stuff. I don’t remember all of it, but a good way to sum it up was I was playing in the metaphysical realm.”

Zak stopped eating and looked at me.

“So I’ve been haunted with really disgusting, terrifying nightmares, I’ve been scratched. I’ve been chased and tormented. The last straw was when I told something to leave me alone, that I’d had enough, but I just pissed it off and it threw me back 30 feet against a wall. That incident put me in the hospital.”

Holly laid a hand on my back.

“Wow.”

“I was so pissed when I woke up. I was ready to go to war.”

Zak smiled “Yeah, of course.”

“But I didn’t.”

“Oh… Why not?”

“A week before I was thrown, something happened. I actually had been sober for over 3 days, and I woke up feeling like someone else was in the room. I rolled over and my Grandfather was lying next to me. He wasn’t laying down, but he was sideways, parallel with me. His mouth was moving but no words were coming out. However I could hear his voice very clearly in my head, ‘Why are you doing this? You were raised better than this. You belong to greater than this. Why are you destroying your life and your family? Why have you turned your back on your creator and savior God?’”

I paused to swallow the tears that had begun to put pressure on my throat. “My Granddaddy was the most godly, intelligent, loving, respectful, and adventurous man I had ever met. He was always quick to rebuke me and quick to instigate an adventure or spark my imagination. So I started distancing myself. Later I found out that what I was doing was making my mother physically ill from the stress, among other things. I just refused to see the collateral damage.”

It wasn’t the whole story by any means, but it served it’s purpose.

“So you saw your grandfather’s ghost?” Nick asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m still wrestling through the idea, but I am very convinced that every ‘ghost’ I’ve ever come into contact was either something or someone sent by God to communicate to me… or it was a demon.”

Zak frowned. “But we come into contact with ghosts that aren’t trying to harm us at all, so surely those aren’t demonic.”

“In my opinion, Zak, yes they are. They’re just distracting you. They’re playing with you. They’re keeping your eyes on the ball so that you never see the net that gives the ball significance and purpose.”

Nick leaned across with his elbows on the table to me and said, “What makes you say that?”

“The Bible has countless discussions about avoiding speaking with the dead, most with different reasons and consequences, but they make sense. There’s a reason you can’t always sense one of those things when it’s in the room with you – they operate on a different plane that we can’t get our minds around. So regardless of technology that captures evidence, any of it could be benign or good, but it could most assuredly also be evil and you would have absolutely no idea, because you aren’t tapped into that part of reality.”

Zak smirked, “So how do you know it wasn’t a demon you saw, and not your grandfather?”

I smiled. “It could have been. See, the Bible also gives instruction that if you do receive a message from the dead, to see if it passes the filter of the Bible… Is the message pointing to the glory of God through Christ, or is the message robbing of His glory? So if I didn’t use this apparition of my Granddaddy the way I ought to and instead ran around bragging about it and trying to find it again… another demonic distraction. His message passed the biblical filter, but the interaction still could have been a test. See what I mean?”

Holly jumped in. “It makes my brain explode.”

“So what about the religions that were based off of Christianity?” Veronique asked.

I nodded. “Well, that's an extremely sensitive issue, but more or less... same difference. You don't add to the cross. 'Christ is salvation' turns into 'Christ plus X equals salvation,' mutates into "Christ plus X equals salvation; And by the way, forget about Jesus.' Prime examples that we have no real capability of discernment.”

Aaron looked confused. “Some of what they said did line up, though?”

Holly laughed. “Well yeah, you can’t just hand someone who only eats meat a cucumber and say ‘this is meat.’ You have to hand them a soyburger and that opens the door for them to stray away from meat.”

I snorted. “Way to bomb an analogy, Holly.”

“Hey, it’s the first thing that came to mind.”

Nick leaned back in his chair and laughed. “You know I was about to peg you as one of those hardcore religious freaks, but I’m not getting that prissy self righteous vibe from you.”

“Yeah, most Christians we run into are convinced that we are going to hell. You wouldn’t believe the hate mail we get.”

That made me laugh. “Honestly the majority of public ‘Christians’ - especially the ones in the media - make me sick. It's one thing to take truth seriously, it's another to sound like a damn fool.”

Zak smiled. I guess that satisfied him so he wouldn’t have to write us off as prudes.

* * * * * *

I dropped Holly off at the airport and drove home.

When I walked in the door, I breathed a deep sigh of relief and relaxation. I let Sasha out and she immediately ran to the front door to be walked. We got halfway around the complex when she started growling and snarling, more than I’ve ever seen her do. I followed her point and saw a black shadow.

Oh. Wait. That is the black shadow.

I sat down hard on the grass. I gripped Sasha’s collar and buried my head between my knees.

I can't handle this! PLEASE help me!

When I looked up, it was gone, but I still felt very vulnerable and ran Sasha all the way back to the apartment. I closed and locked the door, turned on all of the lights, and curled up in my bed with my clothes still on.

I sighed, what the hell. I pulled out my phone.

::Zak how do you deal with the darkness you encounter when you’re not on the show? Do you ever deal with it at home?::

Ten seconds later, ::I cud ask u the same question, little miss theologian. Wouldn’t your God protect you?::

Thanks for the reminder, Buddy Christ. ::I know he has my soul, but He never promises ease of life.::

::But He’s enough?::

I thought for a moment, then smiled. ::Yes, of course. Always. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hurt.::

I fell asleep before he responded. ::You’re a very interesting woman. Most people who face evil can’t ever go back to their faith.::

Another one of those moments where the holy spirit used an idiot to remind me of what love I’m captured in.

::I’m digging it.::

* * * * * *

I woke up with my hair matted to my face, my dog curled up against my back. I rolled over and checked my phone. Two emails from work, four facebook notifications, one new text message. I opened my messages. It was Zak’s “I’m digging it.”

…Really?

::What are you digging, Zak?::

I didn’t want to follow my thoughts to conclusion if he was interested in me.

It was easier to believe that he was being more of the manwhore persuasion, than the idea that he was being genuine. It seemed more palpable, and it would keep him out of my dreams at night.

At least, that’s what I had hoped.

To be honest, my nightmares had returned in the past few days, but ever since we started our road trip with the guys, when I wasn’t dreaming about gore and hatred, I was dreaming about this giant man with dark hair, blue eyes, and a killer smile.

Now, the dreams weren’t inappropriate by any means but they still managed to haunt me as much as the nightmares…

Which made it all the more frustrating.

Be The Quiet chimed again on my phone and snapped me out of my thoughts.

::Um… you?::

Slash-Facepalm. Geez. ::You live on the other side of the country, Mister Bagans.::

::I kno::

A few minutes later, ::U kno, I never got 2 ride along in the Rex :)::

I rolled my eyes. Whatever, jerk, keep fishing. ::Yeah well if you lived closer that wouldn’t be a problem.::

I didn’t want to continue the conversation anymore, so I busied myself the rest of the day with housework to avoid my phone.