Ghostly Encounters

It's that time of year again, when we turn our mind to the creepy-crawly and things that go bump in the night. I'm sure most of us have been asked, "Do you believe in ghosts?", and my answer has always been yes. But, I looked up what the Bible has to say about ghosts and I found my answer here. It basically says that, no there are not spirits of dead people left on earth, but there are good and bad spirits which are called angels and demons. So in other words the so called 'ghosts' that we see are in truth demons. That makes me more afraid of them than when I thought they were just dead people. So why do we see the image of people that have gone on before us? Why is that sometimes 'ghosts' seem friendly? As the article explained, a demons job is to deceive us and lead us from God. It gave a great example of how we put our faith in the psychics to contact spirits rather than putting our faith in God.

At the beginning of the blog I said that I always answered yes to believing in ghosts, and I'd like to share with you why. When I was a young girl, maybe around 12, I was walking down my driveway to meet the bus one early morning. While I was waiting I heard a childs voice say, "up down, up down, up down" and then let out a horrible scream. I associated the up down phrase to the cliffs that were behind my house. At the time I didn't know what to make of it. Later, I was playing near my house and again heard the same voice calling me to the cliffs. It said "Come and play". I went to look but no one was there. I ran away feeling spooked and heard "Wait for me". I heard the voice another time, but it called me by my nick name Ron. I told my parents and grandparents about all of this and they believed me about what I was hearing. My grandma was very scared for me, and told me to tell it to leave me alone in the name of God, to rebuke it. I went to the cliffs and said what she told me to say and I never heard from it again. I always thought that it was a dead person, but I guess in truth it was a demon. I wonder what it's purpose was?

Around where I grew up as a child I have listened to ghost stories that have happened to my family. There have been tales of horse ghosts you could hear running, slaves you saw floating in the window, disembodied foot steps, and knocking spirits. The knocking spirit seems to be the most common. My father, grandparents, and I have all heard it. My dad and I have both heard knocking on our windows only to find nothing there. And it's not just a quick tap, it seems to be timed in between the tapping and lasts for several minutes. My grandparents on the other hand claim to hear banging on there door and sides of there house that are loud and violent. It happened during a Bible study once that she was holding in her house and multiple people heard it. Maybe it was trying to stop them from studying the Word?

Taking in to account all of this I have often wondered if it was our family these things were after? Or maybe it is contained to physical area, because I have never experienced anything outside where I grew up. Everything that I described happened around there. I guess it will be one of those things I can only speculate about. I hope you don't think that I am crazy, although I wouldn't blame you if you did. :)