He didn’t look at
me when he walked in, and he never would.
He wore a business suit, which was unlike him, but he had on his
signature baseball cap. I groaned
inwardly, both sad and angry. He walked
to the back counter to fill out a deposit slip, and while I waited to come face
to face with him, a lady stepped into my window.
She was gorgeous. Long, black hair. Full lips.
Skin the color of rich chocolate.
Tall like a model, and her accent suggested foreign roots. She was the epitome of beauty—but she was
also unprepared, and this stirred up even more aggravation in me. As she took her time organizing her deposit,
the lobby began to fill with customers.
The longer they waited the angrier and more impatient they became. More followed until there were hundreds—and I
could no longer see him anywhere. Panicked,
I desperately wanted to help each of the awaiting customers, but I was stuck. The lady in my window did not move. She paid them no mind, and
they waited, enraged, voicing their complaints.
Finally she placed
her transaction on my counter, crumpled bills and a handful of coins multiplying my irritation. I scooped up the money
and, with a heavy sigh, began to count. Foreign
coins were mixed in with her American money, and I began to tell her I couldn’t
take them—but instead I sorted through them.
One looked like a dime, but wasn’t.
Another resembled a quarter, but wasn’t.
And the next coin I touched stopped me completely.
This coin was
different from the other two. Where
those were decorated with vines and birds, this one was engraved with two
hands. Reaching out to me. I picked the golden coin up and held it
between my fingers. Intrigued, I began
to ask her from where it came, but something stopped me. I looked down again at the coin, at the
inscription that had seemingly just appeared:
In God’s Hands
Taken aback, I looked up, intending to demand to know its origin.
But she was
gone. And so was the crowd.
And I was left with
an empty hallway, and a solitary golden coin.
Last year, when I made the decision to become Christian, Satan was angry. Don’t believe he exists? Sorry. He does.
He has one goal, and that’s to keep you from God by any means
possible. And he is never more invested
in destroying you than when you’ve wholeheartedly decided to change your
life.
He will attack you, doing anything to make you doubt God. Each person is different. For me, he met me in my dreams, tormenting me
with images from my past and dreams for my future. I would wake up, my entire person changed, because
I had spent hours asleep, experiencing Hell.
Within this last week, the nightmares returned. Full force.
So, last night before I went to bed I prayed to God to protect me. Every morning this week I would awake
exhausted, and I couldn’t bear to experience the same pain again.
As my alarm sounded this morning and my eyes opened, I
was speechless. Thankful, and in awe.
As Day 27 comes to an end, I am determined to persist. I will not fear the terror of the night, because He is with me, guarding me, protecting me, and pushing me onward, upward, forward and away from darkness.
