Share the Dark and the Light: Spiritual Autobiography and Spiritual Warfare

One of my neighbors has a yard that’s impeccable. By the looks of it, there are no surprises allowed. Everything seems purposefully placed. I suspect that no seed gets to grow unless it was planted deliberately. I think we might annoy our neighbors because of the way we groom our yard. We don’t really groom it at all. Beyond the necessary weeding and mowing, what grows is on its own. Our garden runs a bit wild. I do my best to respect my neighbors by picking up the remnants of my weeding at the point where our yard meets theirs. I don’t think my efforts are really enough to please some of the people in our neighborhood who have a higher standard for lawn maintenance. I think they really want us to edge our grass and neatly manicure our gardens. The yearly homeowner’s association letter always includes yard maintenance suggestions that we don’t employ.

When I was a kid I loved my yard even though it grew a little wild. My dad mowed and trimmed within reason but he didn't manicure the grounds. Such attention was unnecessary. Everything was beautiful all on its own and we didn't try to control the beauty or improve on it. What God had made for us was quite acceptable. Today, I tend to my yard with the same yard logic I was raised with. I find it no surprise that my backyard is beautiful to me. God did a good job creating its beauty. Beauty isn't something I had to leave behind. When I grew up, and moved away from some of the most beautiful places I had known, I discovered that God's beautiful world came right along with me.

Leaving my childhood home for my new home in Michigan was hard. There was so much that was left behind. I was so afraid that nothing new could compare to what I once had. I was wrong. Beauty came right along with me. It has been my traveling blessing. What are your traveling blessings and what place do they have in your spiritual autobiography? What good things have remained constant in your life? What remains with you despite the ups and downs of your journey?

Often our down moments feel very dark and difficult to overcome. They become a sort of spiritual warfare lesson. If we overcome we have defeated the darkness, and if we let the darkness overtake us it is difficult to find the light. The spirituality of our ups and downs has power. Simply finding the beauty around us can become like a spiritual warfare prayer, because when we start seeing the goodness the darkness loses much power. Spiritual warfare prayers can be said by simply drawing out the blessings in the world and pushing back the darkness. It's not so much what we say but how we choose to live that allows us to overcome the darkest of situations. It's the choice to find God around us that becomes a prayer leading to deliverance from what is most dark and difficult. Choosing to find the light brings us great freedom and can become the inspiration to share our spiritual story.

Sharing My Journey

Painting My Dark and Light World: Pictures of Spiritual Warfare

The trees that surround the frame of my painting have meaning. They are miracle trees from a miracle walk I took with a wonderful friend. God came into the woods with us and lit up the tree tops as though they were on fire. All around us were magnificent trees with glowing embers for branches. I believe that everyone in the woods that day, even those who were refusing to know Him, imagined that God was real as they looked up into the glowing sky. I suspect someone made a U-Turn that day, so I include a U-Turn symbol in my composition. I think someone might have made their U-Turn because God reached into their world and made magnificent trees with glowing ember branches. The miracle trees make my painting because they show the power of God. It’s the power that U-Turns are made of.

After miracle trees was a miracle sky that was split in two by a beam of light. The light rose from the horizon and shot up towards the heavens as far as our eyes could see. My wonderful friend and I just stared. It was the most unusual sky I have ever seen. Miracle sky reminds me that my God can split the sky in two. He is my safe place and my shelter from the enemy. The devil scans the horizon but he can’t find me because my God rules the sky. He tells the heavens what to do and they listen. I add the miracle sky to my canvas. The sky’s glowing beam splits my painting in two. It separates the light from the darkness while God keeps me in the shadow of His wings.

My painting reminds me of all the miracle trees and miracle skies of my life. I remember all the incredible moments when God reached into my ordinary life and did something extraordinary for me or someone else. I remember meeting Craig, my miracle prayer team, the respite pink pill, Crazy Kathleen, friends and family who love me, sicknesses healed, hearts softened, marriages mended and the beauty of purple irises. I remember the deer in my parent’s backyard, one rose in a vase, a tiny glass cup of little white and yellow crocuses and dancing with my dad. I recall holding my mom’s hand on the way to the Strawberry Place, playing in the sand with Gerald, trips to the ocean with my friend Maureen and eating potato chips with my oldest brother. I imagine my big sister's magic canvas bag, Emily’s joyous giggling and nursing A.J. with his sweet, warm body cuddled up to mine. My painting reminds me of all the reasons why the battle is worth the fight. God has loved me. God loves me now. The proof is part of me and all around me. My canvas holds the reasons why I will never stop fighting for the life God has promised me.

Worth the Fight
Age 32

Sharing Your Journey

Exploring Your Dark and Light: Spiritual Warfare and Your Story

Life is full of ups and downs. List down moments from your life. Circle the lowest low. Write about the ways you believe God has been present (or not present) in this difficult moment. Ask God to help you see how He has been fully present in this low place. Consider how you are breaking down the darkness by finding God's light mixed in it. Consider the choice to find the goodness, light and beauty as your personal spiritual warfare prayer. How does the choice to find God's light fit within your spiritual story or spiritual memoir: as a theme, a desire or a hope? Write about the ways this choice has influenced your spiritual journey.

Tags For This Journey: spiritual warfare,spiritual warfare prayer,spiritual warfare prayers,prayer and deliverance,deliverance warfare prayer,believers spiritual warfare,spiritual warfare pictures

A Believer’s Spiritual Warfare Story: Dancing in the Doghouse

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I'm a Believer
Age 32

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Age 32

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It's a Metaphor
Age 40

Right outside the doors of my childhood home was beauty and life. As kids my brother and I climbed viney trees, swung from branches and enjoyed long roped tire swings. A choice of sun or shade was everywhere. Open fields sat right beside thick forests. I can still taste all the fruit that grew there: pears, three varieties of apples, huckleberries, red and black raspberries, strawberries, sweet and sour cherries, walnuts and concord grapes. In the summer there was no opportunity for hunger. We could grab a snack right off a handy tree or bush. Today just about every tree, bush and vine has run its course. You can find trees lying half on the ground, their roots barely reaching into the earth, straining for connection with their life source. Everything is dying. It's all a reflection of what's happening just inside the doors of the home I grew up in. My parents, themselves, sit inside straining. Like the trees just outside their windows, they do what they must to make it along as well as they can for as long as they can. The trees are a metaphor for the reality of all our aging. Some of us still have some fruit to bear, our leaves are still green and we stand fairly tall. Others of us slump, our fruit long ago enjoyed and our leaves brown, hanging on to life for as long as life allows. The metaphor makes me sad the way it reminds me of the grandeur of what once was. I create collages of the metaphor to capture the sadness and give it a chance to speak. I hope, somehow, by giving my sadness a voice I'll feel just a little bit less sad.

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