This was written on 27 January 1992 so a bit old but still true and still relevant!
I thought I should write down the events of the last few weeks for several reasons - to keep them clear in my mind so that I don't forget them
or distort them in the future and also because by doing so I may actually be able to help others who experience the same doubts and fears as myself.
I will begin with a brief outline of myself - I have been a Christian for some time
now but don't ask me to tell you exactly when I became one! One of the many things I am absolutely useless at is remembering dates - even of the important things of life. For a long time I had to take my children's ages and count backwards to work
out their year of birth (I can just about remember 1972 & 74 now !) Throughout my Christian life I have found myself at varying distances from God, sometimes very close and sometimes so far away I have begun to wonder if He is really there at all
(there are no prizes for guessing which one of us had moved - I'll give you a clue - it wasn't God!)
At the end of 1990 I was having problems at the local C of E Church which I attended and for which I was a Churchwarden. These problems
escalated and culminated in a blazing row with the Vicar after which I resigned as Churchwarden and effectively left the Church. I went at Christmas but that was it - I didn't even go at Easter, much to my shame (we were away at the time
but that's no excuse).
Actually, the problems I had at the time were not just to do with the Church but were mainly to do with the struggle I had been having for some time with myself. In one of the C S Lewis books in the Narnia
series (The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) there is an incident in which a not very nice boy turns into a dragon because he lies on a dragon's hoard thinking greedy (dragonish!) thoughts. He only gets to be his true self because Aslan takes him and peels
all the layers of dragon skin off - a long and painful process, especially the last layer! (Incidentally – if you’ve seen the film and not read the book they didn’t show it quite like that!) I very much identify with that as I believe
that all the things that were (and some that still are!) wrong in my life have had to be ( and are still being) removed by God, through Jesus, layer by layer as to remove them all at once would be too much to bear. (See the poem Pull Yourself Together).
I dreaded getting to the last layer of the things that were causing me problems then as I knew it was going to be painful and I didn't think I'd like what I found underneath.
Bit by bit, in the months leading up to the end of 1990,
things had been being dealt with gradually - with breaks in between (length chosen by me - I was scared of the next layer and God didn't do anything until I was ready). The layers may have locked a lot of nasty things in but they also hid a lot
of things I didn't want to face. The last break, when I in effect gave up the Church totally, was the longest.
During this time I got very stubborn (well - shall we say more stubborn than normal!) and I decided I was fed up with
always making the first move - of nearly always being the one to make the phone call or the visit. I decided after Christmas 1990, when we had a party that hardly anyone came to and no-one actually bothered to tell us whether or not they were coming,
that I would not phone or otherwise contact any of my "Christian" friends and see how long it took before any of them remembered I was alive! Well, in the end it took about six months - six months of real wilderness time when, although I didn't realize
it, I was shutting God out as well as my friends. They weren't very nice months either and I got quite bitter about it and felt very hurt. In retrospect I think it was actually necessary and that God had a hand in it - I think I had to learn not
to rely on what other people think of me, only on how God sees me.
The wilderness time came to an end when a friend, Sally, had to come and see me for a purely practical reason. One thing led to another, as it does, and I started
to go to Winchcombe Evangelical Church (now the Cotswold Christian Centre) on a fairly regular basis. I had been a few times before as Sally and her husband, Paul, were members and I had been to Sally's baptism and found the worship and teaching very
moving and a great inspiration. It was a great joy to me when my husband, Keith, started coming along as well and enjoyed coming. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure what he would make of it as he had never experienced anything of the power of the
Holy Spirit before and I (being sometimes, I think, almost entirely stupid!) thought it might put him off - I really should know God better than that by now. Things went on and although I had a bad year in other respects having lost two jobs in quick
succession, both due to the recession but that doesn't make you feel any better about it, I was getting on with my life okay. In reality, though, I was living very much on the surface - not digging too deep (a case of let sleeping dogs lie!) not looking
too far ahead - just getting on with things generally.
Then, at the end of November, I lost my job again - through no fault of my own - and I couldn't find another one. Although things were a little tight we had no real money worries
as Keith had a good job, which comes with a house but I very quickly had this overwhelming feeling of being totally useless and unwanted. Things really started to get on top of me - I had a lot of time to think about things and the thoughts that came
into my head were rarely nice ones!
Of course, having been a Christian for so long and having had such a lot of teaching over the years I should have seen the signs, I should have been ready - shouldn't I? But, like a lot of people (Christians
included) I tend to walk around in blinkers or perhaps with my "spiritual" eyes shut so that I wasn't ready at all. I should have seen that an attack would come - after all, I was turning back to God and my husband was with me. A potentially powerful
combination when you come to think about it - and one the enemy wouldn't be too pleased about! So - he started, sneaking into my mind with all sorts of fears, unspecific at first but gradually boiling down into the one horrific fear - one that made me
go cold inside even to contemplate it - born of the feeling that I was getting older and had done nothing worthwhile and that my life was rushing by too fast - born of the fear that my parents were getting old and would, perhaps, not be around for long - born
of all the self doubt that had been festering inside under all those layers for years. This was it, then, the thing that the enemy planted all too firmly in my mind - this is what he told me, and kept on telling me:-
WHEN YOU DIE
YOU ARE NOTHING - THERE IS NOTHING AFTER DEATH BUT DARKNESS - YOU WILL CEASE TO EXIST.
He planted the seed and I allowed it to grow. It affected everything I did. I began to look at everything in a different way and to think
that there was really no point to anything if it all ended in nothing. I couldn't even think that I might as well enjoy my life now if that was all there was because everything was coloured by this awful fear and coldness inside. I tried to hide
it although I did try to talk to the family about it sometimes - they just thought I was being silly and morbid. Keith was happy and contented with himself but I kept trying to bring him down to my level - it got very lonely in the dark!
All this doubt and fear actually happened over a very short period of time, really only for a couple of weeks, and just over a week before writing this, while we were at the Sunday morning service, Peter asked if anyone wanted to go forward for prayer
( which was not such a common occurance in those days!) and I knew I had to go even though I kept saying "Okay, God, I'll go - as long as I don't have to go first" !! As I stumbled past Keith muttering "It's no good - I've got to go" he grabbed my hand
and came with me - he actually wanted to go up too but, having never done anything like that before, didn't want to go on his own. Well, we were prayed for by two ladies (I can't remember who) and I confessed my fear and it was prayed for - our marriage
was also prayed for and we all prayed together. Great - we went home feeling much better and I , despite all my teaching, thought that it was all dealt with and everything would be alright and that I wouldn't have to do anything else. Sometimes
I really wonder that God doesn't completely give up on us humans - we can be so stupid.
Did I really think that the enemy would give up without a fight? Especially when Keith and I had been prayed for and we were more united than
we had been for years. Did I really think that it was all done and dusted and that I wouldn't have to bother any more - that I could just coast along easily in neutral for the rest of my life? The good feeling lasted about two days then the attacks
started again - only much worse than they had been. By the end of the week I was really under attack - the darkness was closing in again, blacker than ever. But this time there was a difference - this time I had confessed my fear, had been prayed
for in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now I had power to fight and fight I did. I prayed more that week than I had prayed for a long time and also read the Bible more, although the enemy tried to twist that, as he did with Jesus. In
the car, on my own, I prayed out loud, even talked to the enemy and told him in no uncertain terms that he could try what he liked but that he couldn't have my soul - it already belonged to Jesus. That same Jesus Christ who had already beaten death,
who had already beaten the enemy - so that the enemy had no real power over me. If you're really feeling down and under attack try shouting "Jesus is Lord" at the top of your voice while driving - it works wonders (although you do sometimes get strange
looks from passing drivers!)
During those few days of battle I experienced some very strange sensations. I have to admit that I had the flu at the time and could have been a little light headed (but doesn't the enemy like to hit
you while you're down!) but I had this very strange feeling of being separate from my body. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying I had one of those weird "out of body" experiences - it's just that I had a very real feeling of not actually belonging in this
body in a permanent way. A feeling that there was definitely a complete entity inside, separate from the body but living in it for the moment. One Friday night, as I was driving up a lonely country road on a bright, frosty starlit night felt very
strongly, just for a few seconds, that it was only my human body that was holding me here and that I could, if free of it, just take off and fly into the heavens. It is very difficult to explain the situation as it was really beyond words. It was
as if God placed me on the very edge of eternity - showed me what I really was and what was to come. And I wasn't "nothing", I was not just a body which would die and disappear - and what was to come wasn't dark and empty and nothing - it
was bright and clear and beautiful and endless. I have to admit it was hard to have to come back from the edge.
I have to explain that while I was going through alll that torment I hated reading or hearing anything to do with death
- and all of a sudden the papers, television and even books I read seemed to be full of it. Every time something reminded me I would back off inside, try to hide, try to add more layers of dragon skin to protect myself. But I couldn't hide, the
more I tried the more it was there - and behind the word "death" there was the fear. But, thanks to God, I kept going and kept praying and was now talking to God more than ever. At the end of the final week of that seemingly endless battle I told
Him what He already knew - that I was a real "doubting Thomas" - that I needed to touch the wounds - that I needed real confirmation of His promise of eternal life. "Send me a word, please" I asked. To be quite honest I had been wanting a "word"
for my situation for some time but before the battle I hadn't really understood what that situation was.
As my husband is a Dairy Herdsman he has to work alternate weekend so at that time we olny usually managed to get to Winchcombe every
fortnight as we liked to go together. This weekend was his weekend to work so we wouldn't normally have been going to church but I felt I really needed to go and asked if he could try to make it. He said he'd try but I had also decided that whether
or not he made it , I just had to get there. Well, we both made it and , just for a change, we didn't have to creep in at the back as we weren't late! We sang with enthusiasm, prayed with everyone else but no "word" came for me. Still,
maybe there would be something in the sermon.
"Something" did I say? I forgot that when God gives He gives abundantly. I didn't get a word - I got lots and lots of words - in fact I got the whole sermon ! I was afraid
of death so what was the sermon about - life, what else? Life as God wants it for us, Life in abundance - Eternal Life ! Glorious, beautiful life ! And then, right at the end Peter, knowing nothing of my situation, started talking about dying
to self in order that we might live in Christ. And then he said it - and I found myself laughing and crying at the same time! He said that the enemy would try to tell us that when we die there is nothing but that it was a lie!!! What
more do I want - blood? ( I suppose I've already had that!) Word for word he had voiced the lie that the enemy had been feeding me - and confirmed that it was a lie. I should really have stood up there and then and told everyone but
I lacked the courage. I did tell Peter, and the people who had prayed for me, after the service and soon after wrote this testimony so that it could be shared with others.
From all this I have learnt some valuable lessons and truths
that, I believe, will stay with me for the rest of my life. I was afraid to die because I was afraid to lose my self. I didn't want to cease to exist, to be nothing. I was afraid of oblivion. Now I have learn't that if I want to find
myself I must first lose my self I, who was afraid of dying, must go on dying to self for the rest of my time on this earth. But I also know that when I die to self then I will find the real me, the real Ann, the Ann that God knows is in there,
the perfect and whole being that I was always intended to be. I know I'll never reach that perfection completely in this life but I have to go on striving for it - I know it's in there somewhere!
I now know what the last layer of
dragon skin is, the one I've been trying to avoid losing, the one the enemy has been trying to tell me is the most important to keep and the most disasterous to lose. It's self - and underneath it there is not "nothing" - underneath it there is
me! So, with God's help, I will start peeling. I know it will be a long and sometimes painful process - and that sometimes I will let the skin grow back so that it will have to be peeled all over again. But we'll get there in the end, God
and I, and then it will be a case of - Will the real Ann Miller please stand up !