Things that go “bump in the night” go way back with me. My earliest memory of being scared to death of something on television was the flying monkeys on “The Wizard of Oz” on a black and white television. I literally hid my face until they were gone.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t hide my face from my first actual nightmare. I think I was five or six, then. I dreamed that my dad and I went into a scary mansion. There was a gift shop with a table filled with two particular figurines. One was a tiny orange vase, about three inches tall with a relief carving of a dragon on it, and the other was a figure of a Chinese man that was about four inches tall. It was as if there were hundreds of them, all in a row, staring back at me. While I looked at them, mesmerized, my dad left me for a few moments and came back a werewolf. After that, all I remember is screaming, and then I woke up. I spent the rest of that night, and a few more, I think, in bed with Mom and Dad!
Funny thing, the figurines were real. There was a shelf over my bed that Mom put little knick-knacks, including the dragon vase and figurine. I had never told her that the dragon on the vase and the little Chinese man always scared me until I was an adult.
Remember the “Bigfoot” craze? I remember, as an eight-year-old, praying every night to not be so afraid. Bigfoot, earthquakes . . . you name it, I was scared of it. It probably didn’t help that the boy sitting in front of me in second grade had me convinced that our part of Kentucky, the Jackson Purchase, was going to crumble and fall off into the Mississippi River . . .
When I was fifteen, I decided that I could read a scary book. I decided, one summer evening while my parents and sister were down the road at some friends’ house visiting, that I would read “The Amityville Horror.” I thought, it’s supposed to be a true story, so how scary could it be? There are no such things as ghosts, after all.
The windows were all open to catch the summer breeze. We lived on a little country road with no streetlights. Pitch dark outside. I honestly think that book scared me more than the flying monkeys . . . maybe. Have I ever seen the movie? Um, NO.
What about now? I can still jump with the best of them, but I don’t watch scary movies and I don’t read scary books. It’s fun to be scared sometimes, but I don’t seek it out like my daughters do, for some weird reason! You can read my oldest daughter’s post about bad horror flicks, HERE!
Thinking back on all these things that frightened me so thoroughly actually makes me smile. I had a good childhood. There was nothing, in all those things that scared me so, that was real. For so many people, life is full of fear.
The future can be frightening, but God tells us not to be afraid of anything, not to worry or be anxious about anything.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7, KJV
On this Halloween, I pray that you can turn these things that can easily morph into fear and hopelessness, into God-centered prayers and plans.
Leave a Reply