It Felt Like Death
By Phil Scovell
Although I have not slept well for many years, something had
recently changed. After awaking each morning, I felt unable to
physically function until late in the afternoon. I finally
decided it was time to see our family doctor.
Although he ran blood tests to see if anything showed up
that might be a possible suspect, his first guess was sleep
apnea. My wife, a medical transcriptionist for 35 years, had
been trying to tell me that I had sleep apnea for more than two
years but I just didn't think that was my problem. I have since
learned that people with sleep apnea rarely know, or think, they
have it because they generally don't realize their sleep is being
disturbed.
In case the reader doesn't know what sleep apnea is, simply
defined, it is when you literally stop breathing during sleep.
So your brain sends a critical wake up signal, since you aren't
breathing, and your body will do anything to jump start your
breathing again. It can literally feel as if you were
electrically shocked into consciousness if the apnea is severe.
That, in fact, was happening to me at times.
One of the most obvious symptoms of sleep apnea is day time
total exhaustion to the extreme. I have never been able to
describe that feeling until recently. Saying I was just tired
wasn't exactly right. Saying I felt extremely exhausted didn't
exactly define how I felt either. I said often it felt as if I
were weak but that still could not describe my physical feeling.
Additional sleep would not make the feeling go away. There just
wasn't a word in the dictionary I could find to identify how I
felt. Strangely enough, by later afternoon or very early
evening, I always felt normal and my strength seemed to return
and I could function normally.
Upon my doctor's recommendation, I entered the hospital for
an over night sleep study. They glue four probes to your scull
to watch brain patterns during sleep. They
wrap a strap around your stomach and another around your chest in
order to monitor your breathing. Additional probes and sensors
are taped to your legs to see if your legs jump rapidly during
sleep because often people with sleep apnea will jerk
spasmodically when their brain is trying to jolt them back into
breathing again. I had experience many of those symptoms to the
point I was jerking awake and if one of my hands was near the
head of our bed where we have a book shelf, I often knocked
things over. Frankly, awakening during the night time and time
again in this violent way, can be quite frightening and other
emotional concerns then easily come into play because you can't
analyze what is happening or why. Also, they taped probes on my
chest to monitor air flow in and out of the lungs and to monitor
the heart during the night sleep. In some cases, they have to
come into your room during the night to put a sleep mask over
your nose in order for you to breathe better. During the night,
from beginning to end, you are video taped. An intercom monitor
is likewise on in your room throughout the night. This is so
they can listen to you and if you need assistance, all you need
do is speak and someone comes running. All the wires running
from the probes, sensors, and straps, connect to a central device
which is then connected to the computer. Specially trained
technicians sit and watch your data being displayed on the screen
all night. In short, if you so much as break wind, which is an
old way of saying if you even pass gas during the night, it is
recorded and logged as data. If you absent mindedly pick your
nose during the night, you are not only caught electronically by
the computer but you are on video tape as well. Now, there's a
family video you can drag out and force your friends and
relatives to watch for seven or eight hours. Makes sure you pop
a 55 gallon drum of popcorn if you plan on watching it straight
through. They also want you to sleep on your back for the first
hour or two, something I normally find next to impossible to do,
but then you are allowed to sleep in any position you normally
use. Sure. Try rolling around with all these wires and cables
hanging from every part of your body and see how comfortable you
are. Then, when you are awakened in the morning, feeling lousy,
the quickly rip off the tape and gummy glue in your hair to
remove the wires and probes. Too bad if you forgot to shave your
legs the night before. I did forget, I'm proud to say.
In basic layman terms, sleep apnea occurs due to the tongue
sliding too far back and blocking the throat and thus cutting off
air flow to a lesser, or greater, degree. Wearing a nose mask
with air flowing in and through the nasal passages, is often all
that is needed to keep the passageway opened for breathing to
occur normally. In more severe cases, a surgical procedure is
available but most people find almost instant positive results
from wearing a device over the nose called Continuous Positive
Airway Pressure or C PAP for short. This keeps the throat from
being blocked so the person can breathe and sleep normally.
One day, following my doctor's appointment, and learning
that nothing in my blood work showed anything abnormal, I was
sitting on our deck swing praying. The sleep study had been
successfully concluded and now I was waiting for my doctor to get
the data back from the hospital to see if I in fact had sleep
apnea. It was mid afternoon so I was beginning to physically
feel better for that day. I was thinking about how I felt and
about what might be wrong. Since I couldn't describe the feeling
in my body, I heard the Holy Spirit suddenly say, "How does it
feel?"
Then I knew. I said, "It feels like death." It was true.
I felt as if my body were physically dying yet I wasn't tired, I
wasn't sleepy, I wasn't weak, and I wasn't exhausted. It felt
truly as though my body were physically dying. As an
intercessor, I immediately recognized the warning signals and I
began to quickly do a spiritual search, as it were, to locate the
cause of the feeling of death. Why? Because I wasn't dying so
the feeling of death should not be there. Yet it was. I was
going to pray and find out why.
I prayed and asked the Lord where this feeling came from and
I instantly saw the demon. He was up high, as if sitting on a
tall hill near my head, and small and black. I prayed a simple
prayer; binding his words and condemning them. After dismissing
him from his assignments against me, I then turned him over to
the True Lord Jesus Christ. He left. The next day, I felt the
best I had felt in months. Did it cure my sleep apnea? No. My
prayer, however, removed that feeling of death and prevented the
Enemy from creating a new foothold in my life.
When we are sick, tired, run down, or physically ill, it is
a perfect opportunistic time for a demon to come and implant
thoughts of lies. These lies are much easier to believe at such
times because we are blindsided by the illness, sickness,
disease, or infirmity. I learned another valuable lesson. When
something doesn't feel right, it isn't. That means it has an
origin.
When I prayed, I fully expected to go to a memory where a
lie was rooted concerning death. For example, when I was very
small, perhaps not more than 3 years of age, my mother and two
older sisters and I were in a car wreck. Fortunately, none of us
were hurt but one of my sisters literally fell out of the car
into a muddy bar ditch which probably saved her life. To this
day, I have strong vivid memories of the event and I have
learned, praying with others, an event, just like this one, could
be, and often is, traumatic for a child with subsequent emotional
repercussions. Additionally, I well remember the time, in my
youth, I stepped on a nail. I was taken to the hospital and the
ensuing infection became so painful, I remember telling my dad,
as he tried comforting me one night, that I wanted to die.
Bingo! Perfect opportunity for a lie to be implanted by the
Enemy or for fear to become rooted. I had to have my appendix
removed when I was quite small and I frankly do not have pleasant
memories of this event due to my age and being alone at night.
Another golden opportunity for a lie to be inserted into a little
mind that is unable to process the fear being felt.
I could go on with many such events but I hear someone
saying, "these aren't major traumatic experiences." They aren't?
Try telling that to the 50 year old woman seated in my office who
has suffered from depression for literally decades. When we pray
and the Lord takes her back to similar memories and events I have
just described which happened in her own life, and she is healed
of the lies and the fear associated with simple childhood events,
what would you call it if it was other than traumatic.
My father died when I was 11 years old. Exactly one year
later, to the exact date, I was pronounced totally blind and sent
home from the hospital after six months and more than a dozen
surgeries on my retinas. These two events alone, even if nothing
else ever happened to me as a child, created fertile soil for the
Enemy to implant lies that my young mind simply found impossible
to process with adult understanding. How do I know this?
Because, when I turned 50 years of age, I slammed into depression
full force and began experiencing anxiety and panic attacks.
Nightmares and voices kept me awake for days and I found it
impossible to even eat. When the lies were exposed and remove,
the anxiety attacks and nightmares and voices all went away.
Sometimes people wonder if all I do is hunt for demons. The
answer is yes and no. No, I don't look for them, and yes, I find
them during prayer sessions all the time. Let me ask you a
question. What would you say the cause would be when praying
with a woman who had been raped many years ago but when she
embraces those strong and powerful emotions of fear again, she
becomes ill and pukes her toenails up? "Oh," I hear someone
saying, "She isn't a Christian because that wouldn't happen to a
Christian." If you think that, you would be wrong because she is
a Christian. "Oh," you say, "but all her sins were forgiven at
the cross." That's true but we aren't talking about the effects
of sins already forgiven; we are talking about lies buried so
deep, just the memory of the event brings back the fear and the
apprehension and the dread so strongly, the physical body reacts
violently as if the rape just occurred. Using your salvitic
theology I would say you likely believe, therefore, God's Son
just died for our sins and nothing else? Is this woman, for
example, although born again, unable to live a totally free life
and is the salvation Jesus died and bled for insufficient for
her?
"Well," the argument continues, "she is mentally ill.
That's a case for the professionals." What's a professional, if
you don't mind me asking? Never mind. I know what you think and
I know what you mean. I am not a professional. I have no degree
except for a three year THG general theology degree from a
seminary and I've lost that diploma. I was once licensed to
preach in a very large Baptist church but I lost that piece of
paper so I can't prove it. I was later ordained in the Baptist
church once but I lost that document, too, and have no idea where
it could be. So, in short, I am definitely not a professional.
I will tell you what I am even if you find it impossible to
believe.
First, I'm born again. Secondly, I was told by God I would
be an intercessor at a time in my life when I had no idea what an
intercessor was. Nearly twenty years later, the Lord led me into
praying with people on a one-to-one bases. I have watched God
heal people who the "professionals" called mentally ill and said
they never could be fully well. How could someone, who is not a
professional, do that? He can't. Only a loving God, who gave
His Son that we might live, and was bodily resurrected after
three days of being dead and buried, could do something like
that. What I really want to know is, where is the church when it
is needed the most?
Now, if you break your leg or arm, come down with an illness
that doesn't go away, or need a cancerous tumor removed, for
crying in the sink, go to the doctor. On the other hand, instead
of buying the lie of the Enemy that certain things should be left
up to the "professionals," maybe it is time we learned to pray.
Guess what will happen when you learn to pray? You are going to
cross paths with demons who really exist and really talk and
really deceive even born again Christians. So let's all get back
to work and stop trying to prove each other wrong. We will have
lots of time in Heaven to find out who was and who wasn't. For
now, keep your spiritual ears open when you are ill or facing an
infirmity. You might be tricked by the Enemy.
End Of Document
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