The Monster. She rarely wakes, but when she does, she a thing to be feared. Truly feared. She is the Black Abyss of agony, grief, anger, of pain beyond belief and overwhelming emotions too deep and too powerful to withstand.

She woke up one morning. Easter morning. I nearly died that morning. I nearly was swallowed whole by her. My wailing, I’m sure, could be heard all over southern California, as wave upon wave of darkness and agonizing pain crashed over me. No words can express the place I went to that morning.

Naked, exposed, no place to hide, no weapon to fight with. I screamed to God, "If you are going to rescue me, as you promised, Now is the time! NOW. I need you NOW. I cannot wait another second. Please, God! If you are going to rescue me, NOW is the time!"

Eventually the Monster spent herself. Or perhaps she was merely stretching her claws… and wasn’t yet ready to devour me. I don’t know. I just know she got quiet. The storm subsided and I was left still naked and exposed. And now raw. My throat was raw from screaming (I wasn’t speaking metaphorically when I said I cried out and screamed. Thank God my roommate was in Alabama with her parents, or she would’ve been frightened out of her mind by the sounds echoing through the house). My heart and soul were raw from the ravaging claws of the Beast. And mind my was raw from the whole violent experience.

That’s when I felt His presence. So powerful. So potent. If He’d been wearing cologne, I’d have smelled it. God was in the room. Not just in the room, but at my feet. At my feet! The Living God was kneeing at my feet, holding my hand, speaking soft words of comfort, enveloping me in a soft, warm blanket of deep love that I’d never known before. We walked through the rest of the day that way, like a dad holding close his blanket-bundled child who’d just been pulled from a frozen lake, or rescued from white-water rapids.

All day. And into the next, and even the next.

Then the Monster shifted in her sleep, and I was pulled back into the darkness. I moved like I do when I have a migraine that’s just gotten quiet. Careful. Slow. Deliberate. "Do nothing sudden, quick or jerky that could awaken the pain."

Do nothing to awaken the Monster.

That became my mantra. Do nothing to awaken the Monster. I nearly didn’t survive our first encounter. I know I’ll lose the next. I felt the power behind her claws. She was holding back. I just got a taste. That was like the fat lady clearing her throat. The next time I won’t get off so easy.

A couple of weeks ago my counselor, Barney, urged me to embrace the pain of my grief… which, by the way, he’s the third counselor (my one in LA, and my one in Charlotte, lest you think I’m just counselor-hopping) to tell me I’ve got so many "grief points" I could make it to Mars and back a couple of times. I decided he was insane, until I realized. He doesn’t know about her.

So I told him about the Monster, and how foolish I felt it would be to wake her… Embrace her??? Forget it. I’d rather go to the gynecologist.

But again he made his case: Embrace the pain. Face the Monster. Wake her. And let her have her way with you. You will be stronger. She will diminish.

I left his office emotionally raw and spent. But also relieved that finally someone else knew and understood the power of the Beast. And even knowing her power, he believes I’m strong enough to handle her. Silly man.

But God decided to weigh in on this argument as well. He began to whisper… "She didn’t just spend herself and go back to sleep…. I fought her, and drove her away from you…. I will protect you…. I will help you face her…."

But the thought of waking her scares the crap out of me. And I struggle every day between God’s beckoning voice, "face your fears and Live," and my overwhelming desire to run from everything hard and painful.

And all the while she sleeps. In her restless fits. And since I’m tethered to her, I feel her restlessness and my sleep is fitful too.

Why didn’t she finish me off when she woke last time? Did she just go back to sleep, or did God truly overpower her, in one of His David-the-shepherd moments, and send her back  to her cave?  In my more lucid moments, I sense the latter is really the truth, and the former is just a lie from the enemy. Yes, even Narnia has enemies living within its borders.

Will He come if I purposefully wake her? Will He stand beside me, hold me up? Will He fight for me…? And who will win?

I’m tired, so tired, of being tethered to her. Of her restless sleep dragging me back into the darkness when there’s so much light outside. I want to live in the light. In the brightness of Life. My LIfe. This new fulfilling, amazing dream-come-true Life I’ve been gifted.

If you think of me, pray.