The Twilight Zone

Have you ever had a scary night and felt like you were in; The Twilight Zone? When our mind plays tricks on us, we can go over the edge, spilling into the I’m-just-a-little-paranoid zone, and end up pushing us into a fearful frenzy.

It’s downright embarrassing…

I was talking to my friend Sue on my cell phone at 10:45 pm one night. I’m usually in bed by 8:30 but happen to be up, chatting. All of a sudden I could hear someone trying to get in the front door of our house. At first, I thought it was a black bear since they are known for attempting to enter homes. We have window treatments on either side of the front door so I couldn’t see, what or who, was out there.

Finally, I decided to call out, “Who’s there?”

“It’s Mike. I’m here for the ship.”

“Ship? We don’t own a ship you have the wrong house.”

“No, I work for CLA I’m here for the night SHIFT. ”

At this point, Sue is still on the phone with me, and I decide to open the door since she can call 911 if the guy has an axe and tries to chop me into pieces.

When I open the door, a man is standing there who looks about fifty and is holding a binder.

“I’m here for the night shift,” he says again.

“Our son has day staff, but at night we care for him, you have the wrong client home. ”

“He looks down at his binder confused. This is my first shift, I’m sorry, I must have mixed up the houses. ”

“No problem, have a good night,” I say as I close the door, just a little freaked out.

Sue and I finish up our conversation, and then I hop into bed. Our son Kyle is twenty-nine and has autism. We are used to the revolving door of daytime staff. But night time staff…

But now my mind starts to play tricks on me:

What if he’s a stalker and is just pretending to be a CLA worker.

He said it’s his first shift, but he didn’t know where he was going?

If it were his first shift on his own, first he would have had five days of training, he’s lying.

Maybe he’s outside and is going to try to get back in, once I’m asleep.

I laid there for a while letting my mind try to work out my fears, and eventually, I dozed off.

The next morning when Vance woke, I told him about the events the night before. He agreed it was strange that someone showed up at our door at that time, saying they were a CLA worker.

Later we were having breakfast when we could hear someone’s car alarm going off. We went outside and could see it was my car.

That’s strange, it only goes off if someone pulls the handle or presses the alarm button on my keys. 

The Twilight Zone

I turn to Vance, “My keys are in my purse, someone would have had to pull on my door handle. Maybe that man is still hanging around?” Vance looks at me like: you can’t be serious. Well, he wasn’t the one who was freaked out the night before. We go back inside the house, and Vance attributes it to a malfunction.

I’m not convinced.

Half an hour later I go into the laundry room to do laundry, and I open the dryer door to fold clothes, and there are a set of car keys sitting on top of the clean clothes in the dryer.

WEIRD…

I know my car keys are in my purse. My brain is befuddled now. Then it dawns on me…two years ago one of my sets of keys went missing, and I blamed the kids. They all searched their gym bags and purses, but nothing was found.

Yesterday, I cleaned out our mudroom and found one of my coats that was dirty and threw it in the wash. The keys had been in my jacket. Being tossed around in the dryer had caused the alarm to go off.

I laughed out loud…sometimes I’m a paranoid idiot.

I called CLA, and yes, a new guy was training, and it wasn’t his first solo-shift, it was his first training-shift. He had confused the colour coded schedule and ended up at the wrong house.

How quickly my mind jumped to the wrong conclusions.

My husband just shakes his head some days and chuckles.

How many times in my lifetime have I immediately believed something that wasn’t true, my brain went to the negative, the WORST CASE SCENARIO. My mind has its own autopilot. 

My thoughts should rest on God in these situations. My heart should immediately go to him, my protector and shield. But it goes into self- protection mode instead of God-protection mode. 

Do you have a mind that does the same?

Do you have irrational thoughts and worst-case-scenario possibilities plagued you – in moments of fear?

You are not alone, many women suffer from these same thoughts. Because God created us and understands our human fears, he filled the Bible with verses on ‘not being afraid’ to encourage us to trust him.

“Do not fear,” is written seventy-four times in the bible. What an awesome God we have to want to bring us GREAT COMFORT when we are overwhelmed with GREAT FEAR!

He loves us that much, to have fashioned the Bible in such a way to encourage us, and not to condemn us in our foolishness.

My brain quickly went to the Twilight Zone that night and once again God had to remind me to trust him and not my foolish mind💗