An evil spirit jumped into my body in a dream two nights ago.
She had no body, which thing she wanted most in the universe. She searched for a soul who would let her in.
She eyed a crack in my righteous energy. She saw my weaknesses and waited.
When temptation came I fell.
She saw my erroneous actions. She heard the wicked words I spoke. She acknowledged the chink in my armor and she jumped into my body. She felt comfortable there. Inside my skin. Because in my carelessness I had let her in.
She forced me to fly about in tattered green robes. I was helpless to stop the mad flying. She controlled me. I had given her an inch.
I found myself in the back of my own mind. Weak. Helpless. Tearful.
Now it was her words. Her actions.
She spoke to people. Laughed loud. Flew high and wild. The people thought she was me.
I would never say these things! I cried. I am not me! But no one could hear.
I wanted to so badly to regain the control I had lost of myself.
Then I woke up.
My heart was racing and I wondered at the significance of such a dream.
I once read a spiritual account of one who died and returned. He was not of my religion.
As he wandered the earth in the spirit he saw wicked, greedy spirits following mortals endlessly. Waiting with wild eyes for the mortal to ere.
Every live man and woman was surrounded by a brilliant, energetic glow. When sin betook a person the brilliant glow was diminished and even extinguished in places. Chinks in the vibrant armor.
Evil spirits would shriek with delight and dive through the chinks into the body of the sinner to confuse the mind and alter actions.
The account has come to my mind many times. Our spirits are vulnerable to outside influences. There is a constant battle for our souls we cannot see.
Every time we act with unlove our spirits are weakened. We become something we wish not be become.
In a recent conference talk given by Elder Ulisses Soares, President George Albert Smith was quoted,
"There is a line of demarcation well defined between the Lord's territory and the devil's territory. If you will stay on the Lord's side of the line you will be under his influence and will have no desire to do wrong; but if you cross to the devil's side of that line one inch you are in the tempter's power and if he is successful, you will not be able to think or even reason properly because you will have lost the Spirit of the Lord."
I have been over that line an inch or two at times. Sometimes I've jumped several feet on the wrong side of that line. I know about not being able to think or even reason properly as a result of poor choices.
I feel motivated as of late to cease walking that line.
There is pain on the wrong side. Searing. Burning. Anxious pain.
Peace, on the other hand, smiles upon us when we stand in holy places.
