Halloween Scare

We had quite a bit of excitement before the Wed. night service last night. During the sound check and worship practice a lady came into the sanctuary and sat in the first row. She was crying, wailing, saying incoherent and illogical things. This obviously disturbed the worship practice so they sent someone over to get me from the office to talk with her. I came over, thinking this was just a sad lady who needed some prayer.

But when I got there, I knew this was going to be something else - she was saying things like Jesus sent her there, that she WAS Jesus, that we personally killed Jesus and other such nonsense. So I told her she needed to either calm down, get herself under control and stay quiet or leave the sanctuary and go back to the kitchen. She refused to - so I told her we would have to call the police. She thought I was bluffing, but I sent someone over to the office to call the police. While we were waiting, I and another woman stood next to her, about 3-4 feet away from her.

Suddenly, before I could really react, she grabbed something from her purse and started walking up the stairs to the stage where the worship team was. I came up behind her and put my hand on the collar of her jacket to restrain her and that was when I saw she had a KNIFE in her hand. Yep, you read correctly, she had a knife with a 6 inch blade in her hand. Now what she was going to do with it, no one knows. But it was a knife and she was on stage so something had to be done.

Actually, I tried to get away from her. I had let go of her jacket, backed away from her - wanting to put some distance between us. But when she turned towards me and took a step towards me, I realized I had to do something. Now this part is a bit blurry because it happened so quickly. When she took another step towards me, I grabbed her knife hand and held it. I don't know exactly how it happened, but another man from church then took her legs out from under her and all three of us landed on the floor, with me still holding her knife hand, the other man holding her legs. I then kneeled on her knife hand and grabbed her free hand also.

So there we were, she laying on her left side, me sitting almost on her stomach kneeling on her knife hand and holding her other hand and the other man behind me, pinning her legs. Our drummer then jumped off stage, and pried the knife from her hands - she had her hands locked on that knife! And through all this, she was muttering and saying weird things again. Finally the police came, handcuffed her, took our contact info and led her away. Obviously they knew his woman - she had run-ins with them before - because they recognized her immediately and addressed her by name.

So that was our excitement for Halloween - I was really shaking afterwards. But God is faithful and kept us all safe. I just pray that this woman will be delivered from whatever demonic forces that had her in bondage. Yes, I truly believe it was demonic - especially on Halloween!

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Eph 6.12-13