Since I was a toddler, I’ve been fighting the devil.
I remember at about age 4, I stood in the yard rebuking Satan. “You can’t have me, you devil,” I announced to the spiritual realm. “I belong to God.”
However, evolutionary science, skeptical friends, liberal teachers, and severe trouble at home influenced me deeply. At age 13, I told the universe, “I don’t believe in God.”
About age 15, a fervent atheist, I was invited by my best friend Becky to play with an ouija board that she brought to my house. We sat together on the living room rug. I watched as Becky sought guidance from the spirit world through the ouija board. After her practice run, Becky strongly pressured me to participate with her. I closed my eyes and let her fingers and mine rest together on the ouija’s small sliding table that could move on the board and point to letters to speak to us from the spirits. Internally, I resolved not to let any demonic spirit guide me. And the ouija table would only point to random signs. Becky felt my resistance. She complained and pushed. But I told her that I was done. I didn’t want to play with that anymore. Becky went home.
Soon Becky dived deeper into the occult. She said that she & others called up Satan, and he came. “He’s not ugly, and he’s not evil,” she said. “He’s funny and nice.”
At that moment, I told Becky I couldn’t be her friend. I walked away. Her face was stricken. I never saw my friend again.
If only I could have shared Jesus with her! Becky might have turned toward Him and known joy! But I didn’t. I thought Jesus was long-time dead and God did not exist.
Yet, I knew evil is only too real. “Sauron is alive and well in the world,” a wise man remarked, using Tolkien’s fantasy to express what I believed about Satan.
After that time, the devil began to pursue me in earnest. Dangers, foolhardy choices, obsessive thoughts, depressions, even rapists attacked me. Sometimes at night horrible dreams made me scream.
My heart began to long for Someone stronger than Satan to protect me.
At age 17, I prayed to Jesus!
Now 73, I know Jesus rose from death and exists in glory. Even though He is the Son of God, He still has those nail marks from the crucifixion that killed him. And He is with me as I write this.
Rosemary Althoff, Author 