Interesting about fear and nightmares. They often occur after the experience of horror is long past. (Is the contemporary name for this post-traumetic stress, perhaps?)
Dad said he never feared for anything during those years filled with horror, the years of the Armenian Genocide, the Genocide he and his mother and brother and sisters had miraculously survived. It was not until he was safely ensconced in the United States (see Marash Girl, Feb. 1, A Tale for Taraf) that he started having the nightmares, Turks pulling out his teeth, Turks pulling out his fingernails, and more which he dared not mention to his young daughter. Nightly he woke up in a sweat, screaming in his bedroom in Brighton, Massachusetts. He dreamed dreams of horror night after night, until one evening, his mother came into his room, and asked him to kneel down by his bedside and ask the Lord to take away those nightmares. He goes on. "I knelt down next to my bed and I cried out to God, asking God to save me from those nightmares, to take them away; with every inch of my being I prayed my prayer." "Did you ever have another nightmare, Dad?" "Never," was his answer. "Never."
i have had similar experiences with prayer. God is a mighty God. It is through his word that we know the mind of God, just as words allow us to hear the thoughts of another person. That is why Jesus, the Christ, is the Word of God. It is through his word, He is the word, and it is through the Word, that we hear the mind of God. As John, the Apostle declared @2000 years ago: John 1:1-5 (NASB)
ReplyDelete1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.