Satan Tries To Strike
*** Satan Tries to Strike ***
By the house,
By the door
coming in
across the floor
To kneel by my bed,
My guardian angel came
Carrying ways to hold the peace
of our Lord,
To restore the joy in my morn…
And, to wait no longer, but help to wake me
from a detestable dream,
from my mounting dis-ease,
As that night’s alarming sleep’s theme
About so many of my beloved
gathered at a kind of happy feast…
Where, as I stood peeking around a door,
They halted their revelry
When I was seen
By the all of them — my family,
enjoying a re-union (like many
in years of decades before)
Although here
When they all turned
Smiling
To invite me in,
With their opening, outstretched arms
To guide me over,
and with my dear grandma’s calling,
“Come here with us, Sally! Come!”
I woke at that — jarred, stricken,
as I realized
That the every one of my dear ones there
From my life
Were only the dead!
Which alarmed me to sit straight up in my bed
out of that sleep!
Shaking my head, shouting, “Stop! Stop!
I won’t go! I’m scared!”
I discerned quickly that what I’d seen was founded in my fear,
Because my next major surgery was almost here,
Just days away, and would be
My fifth general anesthesia in four months. (Way too many!)
With “going under” having for me a history
Of difficulties — from days of hallucinations afterward
to most recently, when in the midst of the procedure,
A drop in my blood pressure caused a week-long coma.
Thus, with the prospect of another operation’s nearing its
Scheduled day, it caused my body and soul some weak
Points — which in later anxious hours, I saw
Were the embattled places where my fears had been
Used by the enemy
As unlocked doorways leading into my being.
I felt unhinged, quite because
Satan had used my deep love of family
In a horrifying masquerade,
A,false vision of an afterlife he thought I’d greet
Excitedly? And when unconscious in sleep,
That I’d be vulnerably moved into denying
My obedience to God? That I’d
Respond to his use of my fear of dying “before my time,”
By a giving in to his enticing lies? Give up my beliefs,
My faith in Our Christ Jesus, whom I hold supreme?
With Satan needling me to answer instantly
the invitation
Wrenching me from my fight to survive?
Tempting me away from my steadfast path
Of purpose as God’s daughter, re-deemed —
Unto that last, destined by God’s design, day of my life?
As starlights dim,
As moonbeams fall
Over my roof
Crossing to set over one horizon
And the sun’s rise bringing heaven’s light
Up from the other,
Clearly near, ready to
Shine through my window
Into my room
Across the floor
Glimmering rays
Across my bed
Exposing the truth
Of my guardian angel kneeled by me there,
Still praying psalms for my soul
To be kept in peace and
Far away
From dreams using masquerades;
Askilng, too, that evil leave all
my anxious, ailing days…
So God’s promises and blessings
Might grace my way…
Adding sweetly, profoundly
Into the air
“Holy! Holy is Our Lord! So
Greatly to be thanked and praised!”
—————————————————————-
(c) sally young eslinger 10/18-12/6/2022
***please note, Every word, every line of this poem is true. It was an actual dream I had in a time of extremely high anxiety due to a true history of harsh reactions to general anesthesia. I have also never been one to blame evil for bad things that happen, but my departed relatives would NEVERcoax me to cross into death — or, go into anesthesia without fighting to live through it, which is how one goes into major surgery. Thank you for reading
Thanks be to God…
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