First, I want to thank everyone who shared their story yesterday of where they were on 9/11. If you haven’t yet, I’d love to hear from you on yesterday’s post. Tomorrow I’ll be asking for folks to share the tales of heroism and miracles they’ve heard–from the small ones like Carissa shared, about her aunt’s alarm not going off that morning, making her late to work at the World Trade Center, to the bigger ones of lives saved against all odds. Tomorrow we’ll feature the hope.

Today I want to talk about attacks.

Last night I had some of the strangest dreams I can ever recall. To give you some context, here’s what’s been on my mind. First, 9/11. Duh, right? Second, one of my books going to committee, likely today. Third, a lot of prayer I’ve been giving to my projects, including this new school year with my kiddo. Fourth, and this will seem insignificant, but bear with me, my internet has been crashing on my laptop.

So. In this crazy dream of mine, I got up in the morning like always and grabbed my laptop. Turned it on, and it booted fine. Then went blank. Just–blank. Not to be daunted, I go through the house turning on lights. The switches are on, nightlights are still glowing, but the overhead lights won’t come on. Weird, but whatever.

Daylight is just beginning to brush the world outside. I hear something and look out the window to find four inches of snow on the ground, but only in the grass. In the driveway is my mother-in-law’s Jeep. And in our yard is . . . a reindeer? Looked like it, but apparently it was a dog. (No clue what that was all about, LOL. Probably from my son’s new obsession with Rudolph.) My MIL gets out of her car with people I’ve never met before, people who look like I imagined Sandi Rog’s neighbors from Holland did (see her comment to yesterday’s post). My husband appears and tells me he’s heading out with them for breakfast. I’m fine with that . . . except the light thing is getting to me. And my computer’s still not working. And I’ve got that feeling at the back of my neck that says someone’s here who shouldn’t be.

While my MIL says something about taking the kids for an hour–which sounds like a great idea, since I don’t want them exposed to whatever-this-is, I start to pray. Only my lips won’t move. My tongue won’t work. Still, I force out the name of Jesus.

The lights come on. My laptop’s screen finally displays what it should.

Content, I send hubby and kids off and try to pull up my book on my computer.

It wigs out again, and the lights again go off. Getting mad now, I storm over to the light switch chanting the name of Jesus and glaring at where I imagine this invisible enemy to be. I won’t be run over. I won’t be torn down. I’m thinking, “You’re only here because you want to stop the good that’s coming today. Well, sorry about your luck. I’m not going to take it.”

I put my hand on the light switch. It was in the off position. I push it up. Something pushes it down. Up. Down. Until once again my swollen tongue wraps itself around the name of the Savior.

That would be when I woke up–pushing at my husband’s back and trying to mumble a prayer, LOL, while he says, “Are you okay?”

Now, I’m not trying to say this dream was anything but that–a dream. But as I lay there trying to get back to sleep and contemplating whether that was my imagination attacking itself or maybe a message that I needed to bathe my day in prayer, I had to look back over other times my dreams have had this note to them.

Here’s the thing. I’ve had fearful dreams before. I’ve had dreams that touch on the spiritual, usually when I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve had dreams where I feel the Spirit descend and wash me in His renewing waters, when that breath of holy wind provides in sleep what I need so much in waking.

This wasn’t like that, not really. There was no fear, just indignation that something would dare do this. And when I woke up, it wasn’t with a pounding heart–it was with a desire to give my day entirely to the Lord.

Contemplating what to blog about today, I realized that in a lot of ways, this is what happened on 9/11, as so many mentioned in the comments yesterday. We were attacked. Yes, it hurt–devastated. Yes, we were afraid.

But we stood up. We fought back. We worked together. We claimed the victory long before it was ours.

Today as we go about our lives, my prayer is that we consider what it means to be attacked, spiritually and physically. That we remember our reactions, that we recollect that helpless feeling we all had, the incredulity that someone would dare do this to us. And that then we cling to the real and true victory–the Savior who already won the battle, and the promise He gave us that we can claim that victory for ourselves by the power of His most holy name, His sacred blood.

Today my crazy dream is going to be a reminder to me not to just take it when the enemy tries to mess with me. Instead, I’m going to stand up and shout the name of Jesus. I’m going to do the work He gave me.

And if someone tries to push me down . . . well, I’m going to push right back.