Battlefields

Saturday was a day. 

You know. 

Those. 

Not horrible. But intense.

It was a "processing day."

It started out too early... awake by 5:30, from scary and restless dreams. Those dreams had been plaguing me all week.

And as I lay in bed, too early to function, yet too awake to fall back asleep, my brain and heart began to process. And out of that, came my previous blog post.

It was a day spent in the kitchen. Processing fruits and vegetables from the feria, and making staples like gallo pinto, homemade spaghetti sauce for dinner, and chicken salad for sandwiches the next day.

Lots of mindless chopping. Lots of time to process.

When suddenly, the processing took a scary turn.

Body image issues, demons that I've struggled with my whole life, but recently gained some victory, began to crop up.

A voice in my head that has been put to rest for the last two months, suddenly became the loudest one I could hear.

Damaging self-worth thoughts, from which I've received some deep healing during my time here in Costa Rica... all started coming to the surface.

And this onslaught was on a body that was exhausted from lack of sleep, and emotions that were hurting from a week of bad dreams. My defense mechanisms were malfunctioning. And my ability to "take every thought captive" was... well, it was gone.

"Jesus - have I lost all the ground that we've gained in these eight months? Am I really back at the starting line?"

And yet, even as these questions came out of my mouth, I was saying, "I KNOW that changes have been made! I KNOW that Jesus healed me. I KNOW that today is just a 'day.'"

Sunday came.

I woke up, once again too early and from restless dreams. The pounding was the same.

But I had just read "take every thought captive," and spent some serious conversation time with Jesus in my bedroom, before I could face the day and the rest of the household.

And then.

We had a baptism.

A bus pulled up to the front of the church, and Ticos, Nicos and Gringos all got on. There was an air of excitement! Smiles. Laughter. Emotions.

Worship. Message. Testimonies.

And then... water time. Twelve precious individuals, proclaiming that from yesterday on, their lives would be different as they chose to follow Jesus.

People that we have prayed for. 

Lives that we have prayed over. 

And seen changed. 

And Jesus was getting 

All 

The 

Glory.

In our house, we talk about spiritual warfare a lot. We talk about it, because we experience it. Because we are on the front lines.

Sometimes it's so in your face, heavy with evil, that it's easy to recognize. And sometimes, it is subtle. Like, life is just seeming extra... lifey.

When we walked back into the house yesterday, Di said, "Now does yesterday make sense?"

It did.

Because we added twelve new warriors to the battlefield. Twelve new comrades to stand with us on the front lines.

Of course there was going to be opposition.