Upon waking this morning I heard the word “rascals” and then, “Go get ‘em!” Yep! I got ‘em! By this, I mean that I recognize what the rascals are, not that they are captured yet. But by the grace and power of God coupled with my obedience, those rascals will be evacuated out of my promised land.

When the children of Israel got to their promised land, I thought it would have been like a bed of roses without any thorns for them…. Hah! They had giants to face and right now, it’s rascals I’m facing in my land.

Don’t you be looking at me like you don’t have any flesh to deal with. Our flesh will challenge us until we die, but I believe that after we get rid of all the rascals… (all the little foxes that spoil the vine)….after we’ve stood on guard, watching and praying all the time, then we will have the flesh under full subjection. Hallelujah! That day is at hand!

I have to admit that my rascals aren’t little ones. I now know when and how they got a foothold in my life: My late husband, a kind and very intelligent man, was horribly afflicted by manic depression and when he was in high manic episodes, he would lose all sense of judgment and do the craziest things imaginable…. Truly it was hell on earth and anyone who has lived with a seriously mentally ill person knows what I am talking about.

Although I had/have the power of the Holy Ghost in me, I was like the disciples of old who could not cast out the demon. (Matthew 17: 19) In my husband’s case, there was a legion of them that had me almost going crazy too, but God was faithful to keep and protect us in dangerous and terrifying circumstances.

The doctors would not give Dieter medication to fight his depression because of the probability that it would trigger a “high.” Unable to bear the deep depression he was plagued by, many times during the twenty years we were married, my husband would stop taking his medication and bedlam would begin. I would need a magistrate’s order to get him hospitalized, which often wasn’t possible to obtain because no matter how crazy Dieter’s actions were, an order could only be issued on the condition that what he was doing was dangerous to him or to others. It was frightening to see his plight escalate to extremes with no help available for him.

On one occasion that I will never forget, I was able to convince him to voluntarily admit himself into the VA hospital which was more than an hour and fifteen minutes’ distance from our home. His heart though, was very much against it and on the way there, he insisted that we stop to get coffee; then he would have to go to the bathroom; then more coffee. As I hadn’t slept for days, I was a nervous wreck and when I responded testily to his last request to get another cup of coffee, he lit his cigarette lighter and moved it toward me as if to light me on fire. It was an intense moment to be sure but God heard my cry for help. He was there and calmed me enabling me to handle the situation. However, when we got to the hospital, more trauma took place: After I gave the car keys to Dieter to get his suitcase out of the trunk, he willfully and gleefully threw the keys into the trunk and locked them in there. I lost it!! I stood in the VA parking lot pounding my fists on his chest, screaming at the top of my lungs: “I can’t take any more! I can’t take any more!” It shocked and immediately sobered my husband as he had never seen me that way before. After I got my composure back, Dieter walked quietly and serenely with me into the hospital, but when we got to the admission’s desk, he loudly announced: “We need TWO beds here: one for me and one for her,… but she needs it more than I do!”

I have shared these happenings because two nights ago I had a dream that brought my times with Dieter back to remembrance along with an awareness of my need to “go get ‘em”… to evict rascals that acted up recently.

This is the dream: Dieter and I were in the bedroom of our house and looking down the long hallway, I could see someone with a dog at the door My husband went to see who it was and when he did, I realized he had changed everything in the house. The furniture and every item in the living room were out of place in major disorder. I was livid! When he came back into our bedroom, the bedding from the bed was gone as he had given it to the person at the door. I screamed: “That’s the new comforter I just bought!” and started to drag him by the hair of his head, but stopped myself because I realized how wrong I was. Then I shouted “I could kill you!” at him.

Now don’t you give me any “holier than thou” looks! Our Lord said that if we have anger in our hearts, it’s the same as murder…. You, too, know what it is to experience irritations, resentments, dislikes, hates, etc. which are RASCALS that rob of us of our peace. The question is: WHAT are we going to do about them?

While writing this post I found myself singing: “A bride is coming forth today” and was given a vision of a bride wearing a dazzling white wedding gown. She had a huge sword in her hand holding it high and wielding it in a circular fashion by her strong right arm. This warrior bride had a “Rascals Beware Coming To Get You” look on her face.

THAT’S how we’ll do it!: Dressed in purity’s power, we, the bride of Christ, will get ‘em by the Word of God!” What a happy day when unrighteous anger is no more!