Until Daybreak

After a long day at the office, I clear off my desk, pack up my purse and head towards the door. I place my purse on the reception desk, shut off the lights, and press “Away” on my alarm’s keypad. I turn towards the door, fling my purse over my shoulder, and grab my keys with my right hand. I lock the bottom lock on the interior door, and then the exterior, security screen as I walk out. I place my key in the deadbolt of the interior door and turn until I hear the mechanism move into place. I repeat the process with the security door. I give the knob a quick turn, and feeling that it is locked and secure, I head to my car to go home. This is my process, it is what I do every time I leave the office. I don’t have a checklist, I don’t really even think about it, I just do it. Somehow, pressing “Away”, and hearing the exit countdown of my alarm makes me feel secure. I even placed the stickers from the alarm company in my windows to warn would-be criminals that they don’t want to mess with me. I have never given much thought to what happens when I leave the office unattended. Setting that alarm gives me a sense of security, it bears the burden of worry for me.

So, last week when I received a message with a photograph of my cracked office window from a friend, I was bewildered. At first, I thought it was her office window, and didn’t give it much thought. I assumed a rock hit it, or perhaps it was an accident. It was an hour later when I looked again that I realized it was my office window, and that it was no accident. My husband, my brother, who works as a glazier, and I headed to the office to assess the damage. The crook had attempted to pry the window from the frame in an effort to reach into the window and open the door. My brother – who has been in the window industry for about twenty years – knew exactly what the objective was, he had seen it before. We tracked down video of the incident, and I watched a man spend twenty minutes trying to break into my office. I was home, snuggled in my bed sleeping, and I had no idea. That security alarm provided me with a sense of security, but it only works if the criminal is successful, if they are able to breach the building. There was no sensor that warned if someone is lurking about, trying to break in.

Let me go back a few years, to when I was a teenager. My mom had gone to Bingo, my step-dad was at the bar, and my older sister, Tina and I were home with several of our younger siblings. Tina and I were in the hall bathroom of the nicest house we had ever lived in, and she was teaching me how to french braid when the doorbell rang. Tina went to the door with me at her heels. She glanced through the peephole, then opened the door. To our shock, several men came barreling through the door carrying weapons, their faces masked. They pinned Tina between the door and the wall, and I ran. I didn’t plan to run, I didn’t even think about it, it was just instinct, I suppose. However, when I reached the end of the hall, I realized I had nowhere to go, and I knelt down placing both of my arms over my head. I was bracing for the impact I was sure I was going to feel. I felt the hard, cold barrel of a gun press down into the middle of my back and I drew in a short breath. “Move,” one man shouted. I began to stand up but the gun pressed further into my back. “Crawl,” came the next command. I crawled on my hands and knees down the hall to the living room. I saw Tina huddled on the corner of the couch with the kids at her feet, and I wanted to run to them. Somehow I felt if I could just get to them, I would be safe. When I got the order to “Go”, I went, finding my place next to my oldest sister. I looked around and saw several masked men rifling through our house. I have never been so afraid. “I am going to die at thirteen,” I thought. And then I looked at my youngest sister, just two years old, and I thought, “She is going to die before she has ever really lived.” Through my fear, I felt sadness. I can’t tell you how long those men were there, but it felt like forever. They marched us down the long hallway to my brother’s room and forced us all in. We huddled together on the floor, tears flowing freely from my eyes. We were awaiting our execution. I doubt the younger kids knew it, but Tina and I did. When the door opened, we expected the gun to pick us off, one at a time. But instead, we got a harsh warning to wait ten minutes before leaving the room, and they told us not to call the cops. I am sure we waited long enough to make sure they were gone, but there is no way it was a full ten minutes. We ran out the front door to our neighbors house, where we called my mom. We were alive! We had survived.

During the trial, we discovered that the men had been lurking outside in the darkness for several minutes trying to find a way inside. They tried every window, the back door, the side door, even the garage door, and in the end, they couldn’t get in. Us kids were inside with the doors locked, windows shut, and we felt secure. We had no idea that those men were lurking in the darkness. It wasn’t until they breached that we became aware of their presence.

The rest of my teenage years were spent fighting insomnia. Most nights, I fought sleep out of fear, and many nights I didn’t sleep at all. As the sun broke over the horizon, I would drift off, feeling safe in the light of day. The darkness scared me. The darkness paralyzed me.

So, last Sunday afternoon as I surveyed the damage, that familiar feeling of unrest crept into my chest. The sense of violation overwhelmed me, although the office was never breached, and nothing was missing. Except something was missing. Something inside of me, something I worked hard to achieve, fought hard to maintain. That night, as I laid my head on my pillow, my eyes wouldn’t close. My brain wouldn’t shut down. My heart raced, and I had to think to control my breath. I fought sleep for over seven hours, tossing, turning, pacing, thinking. Finally, I surrendered to the exhaustion around 4:30 a.m.. Monday night was more of the same, and Tuesday, then Wednesday. Although my husband had boarded up the windows, the cameras were rolling, and the alarm was set to instant trigger, I was full of fear. I have spent the last week fighting anxiety, battling fear, allowing my past to dictate my reaction. And somehow, while battling the darkness, the darkness crept in like a cloak and covered me. While I thought I was fighting the darkness, I realized that I was clinging to it.

Isn’t that just how the enemy of our souls works? He lurks in the darkness, checking every window, every door, looking for an easy way in. He waits and he watches, hoping we will trip up and leave the window cracked, or forget to lock the deadbolt. And when he sees that we are secure, he disguises himself long enough to trick us into opening the door, and he comes barreling in. He re-opens the wounds we have worked so hard to heal. He steals our peace, robs us of our joy, and for me, he takes my rest. It isn’t long before we become exhausted – too exhausted to fight.

I am tired. Exhausted, really. Not just from the last week of fighting for every minute of sleep, but I have been fighting for so long that I have nothing left to give. This four-year battle with mastitis has taken a great toll on me, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Just when I think it is coming to an end, I end up at the hospital, in another surgery. It seems like I am always recovering – from the medication or the surgery – which creates a life lived on the defense, just trying to survive. Last Saturday, I felt the familiar twinge of pain in my lower-left abdomen, and it took everything I had not to throw myself on the floor, pound my fists on the ground, and throw a tantrum like a two-year-old. So, Sunday morning, as I sat on my front-row church pew, I was empty. At the close of service, Tina reminded me of a story in the Old Testament of the Bible about a battle. When Moses lifted his arms, his army won, but when his arms fell to his side, tired, his men began to lose. Realizing that it was the act of Moses raising his staff towards heaven that was helping win the fight, two men came to his side. They first placed rocks under his arms, and then those men held up the arms of Moses until the battle was won. Moses, exhausted, didn’t have the physical strength to hold his arms up. Moses had no fight left in him, but there was a great deal riding on his ability to continue on. And so Moses allowed men to raise his arms up, to hold him when he had nothing left to give, and in turn, his army defeated the enemy. Not because of Moses’ strength, or his ability to stay in the fight, but because he had good men who were willing to hold him up when he had nothing left to give. The darkness has been all around me for a long time, but it had not yet been able to breach. Although I have been physically weak, and emotionally on the verge of breakdown, my mental strength has not often faltered. When I watched the video of someone trying to break into my office, I opened the door to my past, allowing that fear to take hold of me, allowing the darkness to breach.

Even as a teenager, I knew that the light was my refuge. If I could just hold on until daybreak, I would be able to rest my eyes, to sleep in peace. I have nothing left to give, and I have no fight left in me, and right now, I am just holding on until daybreak.

The enemy has breached, and the darkness is upon me, but I will not allow it to bury me. I am unable to defeat the darkness on my own, but I know that there is a great deal riding on me to continue in the fight. Lord, I surrender to you, and I humbly ask you to come along side of me, and lift my arms. It is not now, nor has it ever been my strength that would cause me to be victorious.