The Fear of the Dark
Clarification: When I say "the fear of the dark," I'm not just talking about the dark. Yes. I am terrified of the dark and I hate turning my light out at night, and I still leap over shadows to avoid them. But I'm talking about the dark you feel when it's light out, the kind of dark where you can be smiling but your pulse is racing and you can be comfortable but your sweating and everything on the outside is fine but you're dying. Clear as mud? (How is mud clear? Who came up with that?) Let's move on.
This is Cal. Cal is safe. She lives with her Dad in a comfortable home. She also looks strikingly like me when I was 11, appears to be homeschooled and as I just found out, the actress's name is E. Newton. Hm. Creepy.
Fact about Cal #1: her life is normal. Fact about Cal #2: She is normal. When her eyes are open. Fact about Cal #3: When she closes her eyes, she's in a library. A huge library, a library the size of a universe, an abandoned universe. There is no life on this large, silent planet. But one day, something infiltrates her library.
"Something's got in, nothing's supposed to get in!"
It's easy to be cocky in a culture that doesn't believe in Satan. Where almost no one see's demons and most of us have never seen anyone truly demon possessed. I think Satan loves it. Not believing in him could do just as much damage as worshiping him. Because why fight against something that doesn't exist?
I had this idea that if I had God on my side, how could anything go wrong? I'm basically invincible.
Truth is, none of us are invincible. Satan is here. And he's going to try everything in his power to make you weak. Even Jesus was consistently tormented by Satan.
Most of the time (especially here in America) Satan moves subtly and in disguise. There was a few times in my life however, where he wasn't so subtle in his attacks.
I remember vividly the first night it hit hard. Thinking; "Something got in, nothing's supposed to get in." I was paralyzed, I couldn't even move my head. I was shaking and sweating til my sheets were moist, but I couldn't even lift up an arm to turn on the light. I couldn't close my eyes, and all I could see were images that made me want to scream. But I couldn't scream.
I was hoping it was just a one night thing. But it continued into the morning and throughout the day and then for two years following. For some reason horror commercials started to appear frequently in front of me, and things that didn't used to bother me now made me want to throw up. Even little things made me scared. I tried to stay closer to groups and noises and light and anything that would distract me, but night time always came.
I lost my kitty Mulligan at the same time as the fear attacks started, which didn't help. Those Halloween's were nightmares.
But really on the outside, everything was fine. Nothing awful had happened. My whole family was still together in the same house, I wasn't alone. So why did I feel alone? When I would try to explain to someone what was happening, all I could say was, "I'm scared." And they'd reply, "Of what?" And I'd say, "Of...Everything." And they'd laugh. Because an extroverted stage kid doesn't have fear problems.
The Doctor:"Almost every species in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark. But they're wrong. Cause it's not irrational, it's Vashta Nerada."
"What's Vashta Nerada?"
The Doctor: "It's what's in the dark. It's what's always in the dark."
The Vashta Nerada lives in the shadows in the library, and feeds on human flesh. It also happens to be the very place the Doctor and Donna Noble decide to visit (Funny how that works) and this world also happens to live inside a little girls mind.
Cal's Psychiatrist, Doctor Moon, come's to visit her.
Dr. Moon: "The library is real. There are people trapped in there. People who need to be saved. The shadows are moving again. Those people are depending on you. Only you can save them."
Two years of being scared of everything and not telling anyone is a little exhausting. I didn't know why God was letting me be afraid. I knew he could take away the fear but he wasn't. What was I doing wrong?
Finally, I was given the strength to turn on my lamp at night, and sit up in my sweaty bed. I would read the bible and collect verses about peace, and I would read them over and over until I fell asleep. My nightmares were still present, but somehow, while I pounded those verses through the night, it's like they paused, stood back and waited for me to finish reading before harassing me again. So I kept reading.
Many of the doctors friends the mission have already been eaten by the Vashta Nerada. Now the shadows are coming for him. There is no physical way to fight a shadow. So he defends himself with words.
"Don't play games with me. You just killed someone I like, that's not a safe place to stand. I'm the Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up."
The shadows pause.
I could curl into a ball and pound my head and scream and cry and none of those things would scare away my fears. You can't remove a thought without another thought arising. That would be like a hip replacement without the replacement.
What do I choose to feed my mind throughout the day? What do I chose to meditate on instead? What words do I have to repeat, no matter how many times, to push the shadows farther and farther from me? Truth. God is truth and God is peace. There's no recipe, you can shake your fist at Satan all day but if you don't have God's simple words of truth then nothing will change. I'm not a therapist and I certainly don't have all the answers. Sometimes we just don't stop being afraid. But why would Satan put in all that work, all that over time just to make you feel weak, if he didn't know what you were capable of?
I'm not a therapist and I don't have all the answers, I only speak from my limited experience. This quote by Levi Lusko sums up this entire point I'm trying to get at, so let's just hear it from him.
"Filling your heart with truth causes it to be inhospitable to terror."
"When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it will never end. But no matter how hard you try, you can't run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might but just turn dark if he ever, for one moment, accepts it. Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not everyday. Not today. Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all. Now and then, once in a very long while, everyday in a million days, when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call, everybody lives."
-River Song
Even the darkness will not be dark to you. The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
Psalms 139:12
(Now you get to go watch the ending of Doctor Who, Silence in the Library instead of letting me spoil it. Cheers).
