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Of Fear & Frenzies
THE NAKED MAN
By Mrs. Kim Bolton

Tony and I worked out a nocturnal tag-team operation with all four babies. I took the first shift, ten p.m. to three a.m. He took the second shift, three to seven a.m. The arrangement worked well because it gave me hope, hope that I just might sleep four hours straight.

On this particular night, I'm tucked in between my sheets, all nice and cozy. I'm praying and praying. My mother always told us as children, "If you can't fall asleep, you need to pray. The devil doesn't want you to pray, so he'll leave you alone and let you go to sleep." I know this isn't scriptural but it works.

So, I'm praying: "Lord, please let me sleep. Let all of these children sleep on my shift. If they have to wake up, Lord, let it be on Tony's shift. Please, Lord." The baby wakes on my shift. I stumble off into the direction of the wailing baby. I sing, pat, pray and rock for ninety minutes. Ninety, long minutes.

"Jesus loves me this I know. Don't you know? Go to sleep, Baby." Ninety minutes.

About this time, I'm looking for an injection, a pill, anything to make this child go to sleep. Mothers don't care at three a.m. Mothers are not praying annointed prayers at three a.m. "Jesus loves me this I know. Go to sleep, baby, and we'll all know "

I wanted my bed, nothing more. I felt I would not be able to handle life if I did not soon get into my bed.

Three thirty a.m. I crawl out of his room, wasted. I shuffle off to my bed, fluff my pillow, set the blankets just right. Aahh. I'm just about gone - almost dreaming. "No, no it couldn't be." I hear the other one coming down the hall. I threw back the covers and patted the warm spot next to me. "Come on baby, get in with me." I say without rolling over to look at her. She wouldn't budge. I could hear her breathing - feel her standing there.

She wouldn't budge. I turned over to look at her. It was not my child standing next to the bed. It was a man. A naked man down on all fours, covered with whip cream. He was right there, so close I could touch him.

"Oh my," I thought, "what is this?"

I reached behind me to shake Tony awake. He thought it was his shift so he wasn't moving for anything. I punched him hard. "Tony!"

"What's your sister doing here?" He asks me.

"That's not Kelly!" I whisper.

"Well, who what is it?"

"It's a naked man!" I tell him. We continue to chit chat about this froth-covered man who is listening to every work we say. His hiney is in the air and his nubby little head is on the floor and we are discussing his presence.

Suddenly, the naked man freaks. He makes a wild grab for the phone and zings it at Tony's head. Blood starts gushing in every direction and the man runs off.

He'd gouged the handles off the door. The house had been ransacked, especially the kitchen area. He'd pulled out all the phone lines. Preparing for what? He'd done all this while I was in nursing my sleepless baby. He'd done all of this while I was singing, "Jesus loves me this I know " He was looking at my things, opening my cabinets - my refrigerator.

I suddenly realized I'd heard those noises. I heard the sliding glass door open. I heard the freezer door open. I gave the noises a name; ice cubes, air clicking on and off.

The police finished their report. We returned to a changed house. This was now a house where someone had entered uninvited and left fear and chaos in his wake. This somebody now knew how I slept. He knew what I wore to bed and what I kept in my refrigerator. He knew where my children slept.

I stopped sleeping and started doing laundry at all hours of the night to keep watch. Two o'clock in the morning, two weeks later I was shaking out a sheet from the dryer and looked up to see the handle on the front door turning slowly.

I screamed to Tony who came running. The guy ran off again. And I went crazy. I totally freaked out. Unbridled fear burned through my body like a wild grass fire.

"Somebody's after me. Somebody's after my kids. Somebody wants into my house. All the locks in the world won't keep him out. I put new locks on the door; he gouged them off. What am I gonna do? What does he want with me? I can't get away. Can't get away from him."

I stopped sleeping altogether. I became bitter and judgmental. I poured my anger out on Tony and I blamed him for not protecting me. "If you were such a great husband why didn't you get that guy? Why didn't you hear him? Why didn't you catch him? Why couldn't you protect me?"

No one hurt like I hurt, I thought. No one knew how it felt to have a man after you. No one was afraid like I was afraid. Fear had choked out my reasoning and perspective. I was caught in its jaws and couldn't get free.

In the sixth week, Tony came to me; he put his hands on my shoulder and said, "You better get hold of Jesus. You're going crazy and you are driving the rest of us crazy."

I knew he was right. I knew I was going nuts. But how does one stop being afraid. Not knowing how to break out of this downward spiral I cried out to the Lord for help.

I turned to the back of the Bible - this is the place where all the answers are - and looked under fear, peace and sleep. I wrote down every verse.

"What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee. Fear not, for I am with thee. I will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on Thee. When you go through the fire, I'll go there with you and you won't burn. When you go through the water, I'll be with you and you won't drown. You will lie down and sleep in peace. Your sleep will be sweet. I'll never leave you or forsake you. I won't leave you destitute or in want. I won't relax my hold on you. You can boldly and with confidence say the Lord is my helper."

I didn't believe one word of it. I wrote them down anyway. It was my way of being obedient. I hoped the faith would come if I could simply be obedient. I kept the slip of paper with the verses in my pocket by day. I laid down every nigh with them on my chest. I asked God to permeate my being with these verses. I said the verses out loud, to myself, in the grocery store - every where and all the time. My mouth said them and my spirit heard them.

Slowly, some of the fear began to melt away. It was not so all consuming. Next, like warm breath on frozen fingers, my bitterness began to thaw. I started to believe again. Three months later I woke up one morning with a new interpretation of the event. This is where the healing came in. The facts remained the same but God changed how I interpreted those facts.

A naked man broke into my house, I thought. He was so close I could have touched him. But he couldn't touch me. He walked by my girls' rooms. He couldn't touch them. The second time he came, he couldn't even get in the door.

Psalm 91:12 and 12 say, "He will give His angels charge over you. They will lift you over the rock so you don't dash your foot against it." I had a huge boulder of fear and doubt in my life and the angels of God lifted me over it.

Things have happened to all of us - sad things, wrong things, unspeakable things. God desires us to be whole, not fragmented by the pain of these horrible events. He doesn't want us to continue striking hopelessly against these painful events.

There is an answer for every hurt, every anger, every pain. That answer is the God who is madly in love with you. Take His work, memorize it, lay it on your chest at night. Ask Him to permeate your spirit with it. He longs to wash over you with healing waters. He desires to give a new interpretation of the painful rock in your own life. Take that first step. The obedient step. It is the most difficult step in the journey to wellness. His arms are open and waiting.