Monsters

I can still remember Brehm’s first, major night terror.  It was Halloween night, 2003. 

I was on the road (I can’t remember where) and my phone rang.  

It was Laura.  

She sounded frightened. 

You would be too.

She was a fairly new mom, her husband was traveling for work, it was Halloween, and that’s when the screaming began. 

This wasn’t the normal, “I’m scared” kind of scream. 

This was the “Freddy Kruger is real and he’s killing me” kind. 

When she called me, she was holding Brehm in her arms, his eyes were open but they didn’t see her, and he just kept screaming. 

I felt so unbelievably helpless and so did she. 

So we prayed. 

It was a real, desperate, scared, prayer.

Brehm started to calm down, his eyes focused on Laura’s face and then he fell back asleep. 

I wish that I could say that that was the last time he had a night terror. 

It wasn’t. 

Fortunately, the next several times, I was home. 

It was actually worse when I was home since there was an expectation that I would be able to help our poor son.  I couldn’t, and that just made us both feel like failures as parents.  We should be able to make our son feel safe.  Right? 

Well, as soon as Brehm started talking, we began teaching him to pray.  That way, if the monsters came at night, he could ask God to make them go away. 

This, of course, resulted in us running around our house “chasing” monsters and telling them to leave.  If he thought he saw one, we would ask God to make it go away and then, we’d chase it out the front door. 

He isn’t scared anymore. 

Now it’s Elijah who’s scared. 

He doesn’t have night terrors, but he sees monsters everywhere. 

They’re in his room.

They’re in the half-bath.

They make appearances at school like guests on a monster version of David Letterman. 

Everywhere.

The problem is that he is our little pragmatist/materialist.

Brehm quickly understands abstract concepts.  Elijah wants the “hands on” approach. 

So here is a real conversation we had the other day. 

“Daddy…I’m scay-ahd…monsters.”

“Well, buddy, do you want to pray and tell the monsters to go away?”

“No.”

“I really think that would help.  Jesus can make the monsters go away.”

“Flashlight.  I want a flashlight.”

“Jesus is better than a flashlight.  The Bible says that he’s the ‘Light Of The World’.  Doesn’t that sound brighter than a flashlight?”

“Flashlight.”

“Flashlight it is then.”

He is, after all, only three.

But I’m not.

Yet I still pick the flashlight sometimes.

I still pick the temporal band-aid instead of the eternal solution.

Sometimes I still close my eyes and hope the monsters will go away instead of squaring my shoulders, allowing Jesus’ light to shine in my life, and never being scared again. 

I would rather live life with a glow-stick than flip the switch and let the whole room be flooded with light.

God’s been teaching me to let His light shine in all areas of my life, especially the dark closets where the monsters live.

He’s been proving to me that, whether it’s the literal devil or the monstrous potential of sin in my own heart, He is the ultimate monster killer.

The reason I don’t just tell my kids that there’s no such thing as monsters is that I would be lying.

And they would know that I was lying. 

Whether they’re the invisible kind, or the kind my friend’s FBI neighbor puts away, monsters are real. 

Saying otherwise would just be me, trying to make myself feel better.

Believing in monsters won’t hurt my children.

Believing that monsters can’t be killed will.