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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Camping (07/11/05)
The glow of the flames filled his eyes.

What do you mean you don’t believe in God?” My question caused a gasp within our huddle.

“I think the Bible and God is a made up bunch of bull!”

My body began to chill and shake from the unending blasphemies spewing from his mouth. Spiritual warfare broke out at our campsite. The first blow of smoke landed in my eyes. Was Satan challenging me to a fight?

“What’s the matter, did you get smoke in your eyes?”

He taunted my tears that fell for him. I wiped them away as my heart prayed.

“Dear God, help me, help me! What do I say?”

I wanted to run and hide but a warrior began to emerge - a warrior that had fought this fight before. The sense of doom vanished from me and peace washed over my soul. My chills stopped and scripture replaced my doubts.

“I choose not to believe.” His face displayed less confidence than his words.

“Every man has a choice. God will not force himself upon you. You can choose to live life and eternity with God or without him.”

I tossed a stick into the fire. His eyes followed.

“God knows we’re not perfect. We know it too. He loved us so much He sent His Son, Jesus to be the payment for our disobedience.”

“Jesus? You’re not going to pull the Jesus card on me are you? I guess that you believe he is the Son of God.”

Boldness surfaced.

“Yes, I do and he has changed my life. Let me tell you about what he did for me…and for you.”

We talked till the sun arose.

I searched his face, looking for any sign of acceptance. He ducked his head after I saw a tear fall down his cheek.

“I guess I got smoke in my eyes too.”
“But we put out the fire and the smoke has cleared.”

He smiled and lifted his head.
The glow of the Son filled his eyes.
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This article has been read 1276 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Carol Shaffron
07/19/05
Clever choice of words to describe the inner war between flesh and spirit in a time of challenge and conflict.
Nina Phillips
07/19/05
Very nicely written, I liked the warrior that rose up in time of spiritual warfare. God bless ya, littlelight
Shari Armstrong 
07/21/05
Nicely done! :)
dub W
07/21/05
Clever and interesting, thank you for posting.
Brandi Roberts
07/21/05
Very nice, thanks for sharing.
Deborah Porter 
07/27/05
Hi Shannon. This was a good entry and I'll look forward to seeing more by you in the Challenge in the future. You may be wondering about those pesky symbols though - unless your browser isn't picking up on them (which will leave you wondering what I'm talking about). :-)

You're not the first person to have it happen. It's all to do with the original formatting and it seems to play havoc with things like apostrophes, hyphens and quotations marks. Sometimes it happens when a file is uploaded in rich text, rather than plain text, so that may have been the culprit. Then again, sometimes it just happens when you copy and paste your work from a Word file. It doesn't always transition well. If you notice it happening in the future when you preview your entry, just go through and manually type over the symbols in the submission box. But as a general rule, if you upload a plain text file you shouldn't have a problem, or copy and paste from a plain text file. Hope that helps. With love, Deb (Challenge Coordinator)
Linda Watson Owen
08/12/05
Shannon, a really good story of courage and God's equipping of the saints!