God has led me to share my experiences with you all and I pray this is a blessing to you and a testament to God’s love for us.

Years ago I lived in Atlanta, Georgia. I cannot recall my age but I was between 8-11 years old. I was playing in my grandmother's front lawn with my cousins.  We grew up in the neighborhood so we knew almost everyone on the block. Despite this, my Grandmother firmly instructed us to not leave the yard for any reason, though normally we would play down the street. While playing with three of my cousins, a young disheveled looking girl approached us. As I tell this story, I would like to first indicate that none of my cousins recall this incident. I believe that God allowed me to remember this and with clear detail.

As mentioned, a visibly disheveled black girl approached us, but she was a new face that neither of us had seen before. She asked if we would come down the street to play with her. We all firmly told her no. We told her we were instructed to stay in the yard. This disheveled girl (I keep mentioning this which we will later discuss) insisted we just go “right there" a few houses down. We told her that she appeared to be a new face and asked where she lived. She only said “right there" and pointed.

She never gave an address or an identifiable house detail. It should be noted that we stayed in the yard and our feet never even grazed the side walk in which she stood. My grandmother had huge hedges which acted as a fence, meaning it would have been a blind spot if my grandmother watched us from in the house if we even walked in front of the hedges. After the girl was very persistent in us just walking out of the yard to ‘see” where she lived, we told her to leave and went back to play. Actually one of my cousins and I stared as she walked away from us while the other two went back to play. We noticed that she walked down the street opposite where she said she lived. She walked three houses down leaving the block. As she approached the stop sign, she disappeared. Just poof. There was no obstacles in our way to see if she turned or crossed the street. I looked at my cousin. “Did you just see her disappear? Where did she go!” I exclaimed. My cousin harmoniously asked the same question in astonishment.

Now with age, God has allowed me realize that I was looking at a demon in human form. Satan is a deceiver. However, if we remain in God's Word and be obedient he will be our fortress. We were obedient to our grandmother. The defining line between my grandmother’s walkway and the sidewalk was clear and as long as we stated there we were safe. While you can say, why wasn’t your grandmother watching you, I find this story symbolic. Whether you are in public or in private, with no one watching, are you obedient to the word you were given. Can you be trusted to do God’s Word behind closed doors? Just like the sidewalk line was clear and defined, so is the line between right and wrong. How often are we crossing the line?

God said that the girl's disheveled look was glaring. Her hair was sticking up and she was mixed match. She was like a girl playing the role of the scary movie “Us.” This is important because while every deceiver will not look disheveled physically, their sprit will appear so. 1 John 4:1 reminds us to test the spirit by the spirit. I believe, God was telling me something is off and abnormal about this girl. Because Satan is cunning, some people may come looking like perfection, so we should not judge the outer appearance of a person but their spirit to see if it of God. Clearly, the girl was asking us to do something against the words of our grandmother so it was not of God.

This story is not meant to scare you but it is to wake you up to the fact that God is always speaking. The question is are we listening. While thinking back on this story, it sounds terrifying. The thought of what would have happened to us had we'd been disobedient is even more horrifying. But the fact that God was in the midst and spoke to me, I now wonder if the girl was dressed normally and only God allowed her to appear disheveled to me. How God loves us so much to remove the masks from Satan! For God is our fortress and refuge! 

I pray this story will be a blessing to you and yours.