Mine

“When a messenger comes saying he has a message from God, offer him your hand and request him to shake hands with you. If he be an angel he will do so, and you will feel his hand…If it be the devil as an angel of light, when you ask him to shake hands he will offer you his hand, and you will not feel anything; you may therefore detect him.”

D&C 129:4-8

I saw the whole thing. Every miserable second. Every moment that was stolen from me.

I’d been praying one night about some doubts I had been having. I know, the usual path is to not say anything about it at all. Doubt your doubts. Doubt not, fear not. But, I don’t know. I just was having a really hard time with some of these questions I had about church history. How the logistics of heaven would work. Everyone acted like it made perfect sense. But it doesn’t. Not to me. All those others… I was pretty sure they were lying to themselves.

But what are we always told? Pray to God. "If any of ye lack wisdom". All the adages. So I did. After one day... in many ways, my last day, I knelt down and prayed. I prayed harder than I ever had prayed before. I bore my whole soul to God, hoping somewhere, somehow, He would answer me. And I felt nothing.

I’d nearly given up when suddenly, a bright light appeared above me. In the middle of it, I saw a heavenly messenger descending down from heaven. It was as if a conduit between our worlds had been opened and for the briefest moment, I could peek into eternity. The messenger was a man. He wore a white robe and was brighter than the sun burning at noon on a cloudless day. His face was pleasant, with no smile, but no hint of deceit either.

I remembered the teaching I had heard since I was young. We used to joke about it. Used to make fun. But at this moment, I knew I should follow Joseph Smith’s counsel. A pit formed in my stomach as I reached out my hand and asked the messenger to shake it. My voice was shaky, but I remained confident that this was the appropriate action to take. My anxiety swelled within my chest as the being reached toward me to grab my hand. This was the moment that I would know if this was truly of God, or if I was face to face with a devil.

I held my breath as the messenger's fingers came closer and closer to mine. His hand was mere centimeters from mine when I flinched and saw my fingers pass directly through his. I looked up at his face. His pleasant demeanor had been wiped away in an instant and in its place was a cruel smile that twisted his face further than any normal being would be capable of.

I attempted to raise my right arm to the square to cast the demon from my presence. But as I started to raise my arm, my body froze. I looked on in horror as the being continued to move towards me. His shape became more ephemeral as he inched closer. Eventually, his head was pressed directly to my own. Though I could feel nothing there, a dark coolness swept across my brow, as if I had pressed my head against a metal pole in a blizzard. His eyes had become solid white, with no pupils to be seen. His lifeless eyes stared directly into my own. The rest of his body appeared to fade away, to the point that you could only make out the faint outline of a neck and torso connected to the head pressed against my own.

He uttered a single word: “Mine”

The pain in my skull felt like someone had smashed it into pieces as I felt the devil force his way into my body. The pain flowed down from my skull into my eyes, nose and mouth. My entire head felt as if it was on fire as I felt the being bare deeper and deeper into my soul. I wanted to collapse to the ground, but it was as if some unseen force was cradling me in the air. I tried to look down to see if my knees were touching the ground, but found myself unable to move my eyes. Try as I might, they protested against me. I tried to move my arms up to see what was happening to my hands. My left arm started to slowly move upwards, but the burning sensation suddenly shot fire down my hand and I felt it become dead to me, just like my eyes. The pain made its way across the rest of me until a numbness settled in and took its place. While I could still feel all the sensations I was experiencing, I had no control over anything my body did. My head moved against my will and finally pointed my eyes towards my legs on the floor. I was still kneeling in my prayerful position. I tried to move, tried to wiggle my fingers. But my body was no longer my own.

The devil stood my body up, then walked over to the door of the office I had been praying in. The glass on the door showed my reflection. My eyes matched the dead white emptiness that I had seen in the demon’s. I thought someone would surely notice that. My wife would call the bishop, an apostle even, to free me from whatever just happened. I would doubt my doubts. I would be believing. I just needed whatever just happened to stop. Even that sensation, the sensation of resisting, had a numbness to it though. It was as if I could no longer feel, since those feelings largely took place in my body as well.

I watched in horror as the demon took my body to my bedroom where my wife lay sleeping. I worried what he would do to her, but was surprised when he made my body crawl into bed. My body instantly fell asleep. It seemed exhausted at the transformation that had just occurred. But I suppose it was still a body that still required basic maintenance.

I however, never slept again after that night. My conscious mind was awake. On the sidelines as this thing took the driver's seat. I was helpless to do anything but sit there and wait.

I remember that first morning wondering what would happen. My body awoke with the alarm I had set. The demon had clearly been watching me for some time as it seemed familiar with my daily routine. It took my body out for a run, then took a shower. I remember my wife coming in to shower with me that morning. I felt my mouth move as it made me say “Oh, joining me are you?” with a jovial tone. My wife didn’t seem to notice the pure whites that were now my eyes in my reflection. I felt all the sensations of my body, but none of the pleasure of being with my wife. Like when you go to the dentist and they numb your mouth. You can feel the pressure of something against you, but you can’t truly feel what is causing it.

The demon made my kids breakfast and went to work. It sat there doing menial tasks. I was confused, why would a demon take my body from me just to go to the office. Wouldn’t it want to harm others? Wouldn’t it want to be destructive? Demons break things and kill people. At least, that is what I always thought. At the very least they would tempt others right? Try and convince you to sin so you could be miserable like them.

My daily routine went on and on. Nothing changed. The demon got me promoted at work and did my taxes even. I sat there. Never sleeping. Never in control. A silent bystander as the demon took my life from me. Made it as if I wasn’t there at all. I was seeing all the things going on around me. I was present for all of them. I clapped when my 1 year old daughter took her first steps. I saw the whole thing. But, I felt nothing.

Every once in a while, after a long day at work, my sense of self preservation would return in small amounts and I would fight for control. I was able to wiggle a pinky finger slightly once. But the devil inside of me would quickly assert its dominance.

A year of this passed with no end in sight. I consigned myself to my fate that I may never truly live again.

Then one day, my wife came up to my body from behind and covered my eyes. The devil spun me around and looked down to see a positive pregnancy test in her hands. My body embraced her and even cried at the news.

The pregnancy went along without any hiccups until finally I got the call at work. My wife was in labor. The devil rushed to the hospital. He held my wife's hand tightly as she pushed and pushed. After several hours of hard work, the cry of a newborn rang in my ears. The doctors put the baby on my wife’s chest. It was a beautiful baby girl. The demon cried once more.

It wasn’t until a day later in the hospital that I finally realized what this had all been about. The demon was washing his hands when my wife called out that our daughter was finally opening her eyes.

The demon raced over and looked down into the eyes of my precious baby girl.

All I saw staring back at me was a blanket of pure white.