TROLL HUNTING
That area we go to great lengths to avoid – that’s where He now takes me. I didn’t just casually leave it, I slammed the door to all my ferocious fears and bolted as far and fast as I could… No need to go back to those sinister shadows where old rejection and loneliness roam like tyrant trolls.
“You’re not under the Curse anymore. It’s time to face them.”
As He takes me back into the darkness where it began, the familiar tears burn in my throat and the dreaded panic presses down over me. I feel like I’m drowning. I can’t swim. I can’t breathe. I can’t do this!
“Yes, you can.
You’re not under the Curse anyone.
Look at those old trolls – take a good look at them. What’s the worst they can do to you?”
They can… they can strangle all life and beauty from my life and rip from me everyone I love. Right?
“No, they cannot. You’re not under the Curse anymore, remember! They are just shadows with no substance. You are in My Light now. I in you and you in Me, and you will never, ever be alone again. No one can snatch you from Me.”
But what if …?
“I will be with you!”
But then what if …?
“I will be with you!”
“I will give you the treasures of this darkness…” (Isaiah 45:3)
Clearly in no rush, He just relaxes next to me. So I let out my breath and begin to relax a little with Him in this setting I’ve dreaded for so long. I still don’t like it, but it doesn’t torture me like I feared it would.
Time passes.
He searches my face and there’s tender kindness in His eyes. “How are you doing now?”
He knows, of course, but I need to speak it:
He didn’t bring me here to subject me to the trolls, but to teach me to subject them to Him. I’m not under the Curse anymore, so they can’t overpower me like they once did.
But I had to face them, and linger in their company long enough for them to shrink down to the size of truth.
And truth begins to rob their darkness, slowly, systematically.
From the darkness of the cursed He brings blessing.
From the darkness of rejection He brings adoption.
And from the hell of feeling utterly alone He fuses a fierce togetherness.
As my voice speaks what my mind has come to accept, glorious sunlight bursts into hidden crevices in my heart. Light and lightness. The nightmare is broken, the shadows retreat, and I stand free in this land now redeemed.
