Another ordinary spiritual attack
My twelve-year-old son got in trouble at school yesterday. He had to be taken home early. He's a great kid, very sensitive, extremely bright, compassionate, and ...
... depreseed.
We've been working through various things to help him. Tested and diagnosed with inattentive ADD, tested and diagnosed with various sensory processing disorders, he presents us with a multi-faceted problem. We've been getting him various therapies targetting the problems that have made him a social misfit of sorts (at times), trying certain drugs to help boost the right kind of brain activity to address the organic aspects of the ADD, etc. My wife quit her job several months ago so she could help prepare him for sixth grade by working through vision therapy, occupational therapy, ensuring he got healthy activity every day, etc. We've been reading books, changing our parenting approach, etc., and I've decided to work on my own similar problems and get help for them. Every time things got better for my son, it wouldn't last, and he would run into another emotional wall. He's so immature for his age, so "behind the curve" in large-muscle motor skills, so disgraphic, etc., that we have to address a lot of different things, but he can only stand the stress of a little bit of "work" at a time.
This year, school has at times become unbearably stressful for him. But when we look into it, there really isn't anything all that stressful about it for a "normal" person. It has been hard to accept that this exceptionally wonderful son has turned out to be a "special needs child". It doesn't detract from his value one bit, or what makes him so wonderful, but it does add a large set of problems to the set of difficulties of ordinary parenting. Oh yes, I could recommend some books that have been helpful, but that isn't my point here.
Yesterday at school, someone overheard him telling someone else that he wanted to commit suicide. They reported it.
We've heard him say those sorts of things without fully meaning it, but it is a natural thing to think about with extended bouts of depression, especially for someone as dramatic as this boy. But the school has this policy, you see. So he was pulled out of class, and my wife had to retrieve him. Fortunately, they were already heading to a long-awaited first visit with a psychiatrist, so they just got there a little earlier than planned. A child psychiatrist is often the only doctor you can find who will prescribe certain drugs, like anti-depressants, for children. But they are few and far between, and getting an appointment with one of good repute around here often involves a long wait. It's just the next chapter in a continuing story. The latest twist is a new drug, which at first is causing extreme nausea; and the need to do some specific testing for Asperger Syndrome.
But I don't want to belabor this story, which is very long and complicated if I focus on my son. Instead, I want to share with you a short scene from my own personal struggle with all of this. First though, I'll mention that at about this same time, my wife has also come under a targeted spiritual attack, where a rather sick individual (whom she fired a while back) has been spreading a rather outrageous rumor about her. It is completely obvious to anyone familiar with her or the truth of how she resigned from her job that this is a rediculous, fabricated lie. But it could still be very damaging to her professional reputation and her future pursuit of certain dreams God has placed in her heart. It is slander, and illegal, but a defamation lawsuit does not make sense without provable damages (especially with no permanent record of the defamation, which could turn it into libel instead of just slander). That has been disturbing. And to see my son also being vulnerable, by way of his depression, to the deceit of evil spirits is doubly troubling.
Ordinary spiritual warfare
Seeing these struggles as involving a spiritual component with a malicious and destructive strategy of deception, I'm reminded that our struggle is not against flesh and blood. Not the person spreading these rumors. Not the organic contributors to my son's stress and depression. But rather, the kingdom of darkness and the evil spirits that pull strings and whisper deceit and play their ugly role. The devil is still God's devil, as someone once said, but part of this divine drama involves getting to play this role of being a divinely-equipped warrior in a spiritual battle, even though the end of the war has already been sealed.
A word from one of several men I asked to pray with me about the situation focused on the wording "above all" in the Ephesians passage about the "armour of God". The piece given the "above all" qualifier was the "sheild of faith", with which we can extinguish the flaming darts of the enemy. I was thinking through all those parts of the armor of God today while also praying about the dual situation with my wife and son, mostly during some aerobic exercise this morning. I was especially asking God to speak to me and direct me regarding my son's situation.
Ordinary miracle
Moving on to a shower after exercise, I was finishing my meditation by considering the sword of the spirit, and specifically asking God to grant me some insight that would help me to take hold of His word in an effective way to use it as a weapon in this battle. I needed to be able to get a good grip on the handle, meaning: I needed to find just the right living word from God to help defeat the suicidal thinking my son had been experiencing. And as I prayed expectantly, I got a biblical reference in my thoughts, right out of nowhere. Given the context, I knew this was an answer. It was "Exodus twenty, twelve, and thirteen." But I had absolutely no memory of what I might find in Exodus twenty, or the chapter before, or the chapter after. No clue.
So when I came home after work, I looked it up. It turns out that Exodus twenty covers the "Ten Commandments" (they are also covered elsewhere). It also turns out that those two verses, twelve and thirteen, happen to be the exact two of those ten commandments that my son would be breaking by committing or planning to commit suicide. Twelve is the one about honoring father and mother so that you can live a long life. Thirteen is to not commit murder. I also reviewed the others, and none of the others would seem to say much about suicide, directly. But those two hit on themes I had already been thinking about with regard to the whole topic, but I had never thought of it in terms of the ten commandments. I had thought of "no murderer... shall inherit the kingdom" (let's not go there right now), and similar New Testment bits, but never the ten commandments.
I did share this with my son, and my wife, later. And I led up to it by asking my son about how Jesus handled temptation, because I believe that my son is ultimately the one who needs to take up this sword of the spirit as his defense against these spiritual attacks of suicidal thoughts. So I presented this as a tool for him to use in this battle, given miraculously from God. But the neat thing here is that God spoke to me; or rather, that I was actually able to hear Him speak to me. And the direct relevance of what I "heard" to what I was asking for is irrefutable. I do not have the bible memorized, and could not have even guessed what might be in Exodus 20, and the idea that my subconsious could somehow have remembered that those two verses were those two commandments is downright ludicrous. I would never have even guessed that this would be a good idea. But after it all came together, it was very clearly a word from God to me in answer to my specific request about a very specific need.
This is the sort of everyday miraculous walk with God that many Christians I know experience practically every day. My own wife sometimes has this sort of thing go on multiple times throughout the course of a single day, leading to unplanned miraculous ministry at the guidance of God in ways no human being could even plan if they tried. I myself don't experience it quite that often, but I'm trying to walk in an attitude of awareness and gratitude, and expectant readiness, so that I can experience it more regularly. If you've never experienced this sort of thing, you may not have any inkling of just how "normal" and "ordinary" God wants it to be, even for you. Unfortunately, some of us have to go through some difficult things to get to a point where we are tuned in and paying attention.
I am so grateful to God for His grace in granting such good gifts by His Spirit, that I just feel the need to honor Him here by sharing this story with you. It's a wonderful reality that God provides such clearly miraculous answers to prayer, don't you think?
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