With the assistance of a translator, I was able to get out of the patient that she had seen a woman in the room with long, black hair that had disappeared behind the curtain covering her door. I pulled the curtain aside; the patient was still seeing the woman and wailing. After my boss came in the room and called the admitting desk to see if anyone fitting the description had been seen on the unit, (there wasn't anyone of that descript,) the patient admitted to having frequent, vivid nightmares.
We called the spouse to come stay with her for the night, brought her over to NICU to see the babies, and then per her request, called in a chaplain who gave her a Bible. She slept with it clutched to her chest all night. While most of us chalked it up to a bad dream, there was one nurse who was utterly convinced there had been "angel warfare" taking place on the unit yesterday. A couple of nurses were very unnerved by the whole incident. One nurse thought it was the "Angel of Death" premonition. Personally, I chalked it up to a hallucination due to a lack of sleep and poor health combined with a history of frequent bad dreams. I guess at the time I didn't think twice about it; since I'm covered by Christ, what could they do to me?
Is it possible that the battle of angels and demons is something confined to Bible times, or does it still exist today under the guise of medical malaise?
2 comments:
Maybe the battle of angels and demons for this woman has more to do with hormones and drugs, along with her bad dreams and her superstitious upbringing, then it does with the spiritual world. Maybe she was dehydrated and exhausted. And she managed to get herself some attention, didn't she? Ok, I am being very suspicious. On the other hand, perhaps she will read the Bible now and perhaps this is a step towards eternal comfort. As to whether or not strange spirits exist, I think we must say that they still do. Good question to ask our pastors!
Yeah, evil spirits exist, but the thing is, lots of people out there are quick to point the blame at someone else. If there was some demon terrorizing her, then she is quite valiant and heroic, isn't she? In that case, there would be nothing wrong with her, but I guess the Holy Spirit would have given her spiritual eyes to discern spiritual reality, which then terrified the daylights out of her.
Either that or she's simply nuts. She's simply superstitious and her fears were so intense for her children that she convinced herself that some horrible woman was in the room with her. Take it from me, if you want to convince yourself of something, you can.
The bottom line is that either there's nothing wrong with her, and she's a valiant warrior for God who is being tested by being allowed to see this demonic woman - OR she's simply scared and superstitious.
The smart money is on her being a Roman Catholic, which means she has literally NO hope, and lives her life in terror of all kinds of strange things that don't really exist. One of my professors told me that this is how we should think of the pagans of the first century, terrified of anything and everything, trying to live by all these crazy little rules.
I have made my conclusion. If she were a valiant warrior for God, she would have been READING the Bible rather than clutching a BOOK to her chest, as if it were the pages, not the words that had the power. Superstitious. Catholic. Nuts.
Oh, and a history of vivid nightmares, which is probably more likely hallucinations.
Ghee wins.
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