Written by: Erica Sawyer (Shute)
My life changed forever one day, mid-August 2018. I was sitting on my couch, exhausted from the day I had, too tired to feed myself when God spoke to me. I know what you’re probably thinking…”Oh, no, not one of these stories!!” Well. Believe me when I tell you, for days, I didn’t believe what God said to me either, perhaps maybe it was a week, actually my world stopped, which is why I cannot give you an exact date this event actually happened. What I can tell you is this— I never saw faith the in the same way ever again.
Jake Sawyer and I met in 4th grade elementary school in Standish, Maine. I don’t remember the first time meeting him, but I do remember him being one of the most athletic, most-popular boys in the school!! 😉 All the girls had a crush on him, so when my best-friend had a crush on him, and Jake asked me out in 5th grade, I used it as an excuse to say “no.” The fact I was too shy was more likely what kept me from taking a chance.
Plus I was different. At five years old, a car-accident left me paralyzed, dependent on a wheelchair, a T-10 complete paraplegic, unable to walk or feel my legs, so my wheelchair, and everything that came with it complicated things. I didn’t want anyone to know about those parts of my life, especially not a boy.
I thought I knew what was best.
I lived to regret that decision for decades.
In 2010, Facebook reunited Jake and me, allowing us to remain at an arm’s length of each other. We kept in touch.
We even met up in Vegas in 2012…a ‘chance’ meeting I now know changed the trajectories of our lives without our even knowing it.
I made reference to my “5th grade regret” in a message I sent to Jake after that Vegas meeting. I remember writing with confidence, as tears streamed down my face, at two a.m., on my friend’s couch, “But I know that God works out all things for good….” I remember the emotions going through my soul as I wrote those hopeful words.
I was desperately seeking the peace I needed to believe those words, not just have them inside my head but have them deep within my heart also. I wanted to believe God was going to make all things work out, in the end, because I was in a lot of pain at that time in my life, but there was something soothing about seeing Jake that day that I never forgot.
Jake would pop up here and there. I always enjoyed our text message exchanges, although I could tell there was always something more going on on the other end of that phone; however, I never could allow myself to get close enough to him to find out.
Every time, unknowingly, Jake would attempt to get closer to me, I would push him away. It was my way of protecting myself from what ‘I thought I knew’. What “I thought I knew” turned out to be the biggest lie standing in my way of what I always dreamed of.
I thought Jake Sawyer was way out of my league. It was thirty years later, and he is still the most popular guy I know. He won Mr. California, multiple body building shows, appeared in tv shows, commercials, billboards, Olympic’s advertisements, magazines; every girl would do anything to be with him, certainly I would never be ‘good enough’.
“What would a good-looking, celebrity-of-a man want with a woman in a wheelchair?? Certainly he would rather have a girl parading around in high heels next to him.” That’s what I would tell myself, and like the 5th grade-fool, convinced myself I would never be ‘good enough’.
Over the years I would follow Jake on Facebook, commenting every now and then, in an attempt to get him to come see me in Arizona. (It took long enough, but I finally managed to get him here!!)
He would post photos I would pray over. There were a couple in particular that always grabbed my attention.
He seemed like the perfect all-American man—at least that is what I saw when I looked at him. A man with a huge heart. A tender heart, yet, would defend his honor and family to the end, if need be.
I wanted that. I wanted that kind of man in my life, but the problem was I didn’t think he was much of a man. He was still a boy.
I remember a post Jake wrote asking for some cologne smells…one friend replied: grease, oil, sweat, cars, you know “man stuff”….
That comment struck me and obviously stuck with me. “Man stuff.” That is when I began praying for Jake to become a man.
There is one photo of Jake sitting behind a 50 caliber machine gun, in Iraq, with a smile on his face that says ‘I have not seen the horrors of war yet’. His smile beams from ear to ear—you can almost see the pride swelling up as courage inside his Army uniform.
In stark contrast to that photo is one of him standing in front of a military vehicle, next to his buddy, both of them holding their rifles at their sides with a look of “I’ve seen the horrors of war, now get me the f**k out of here…”
That look devastated me. This was my friend. This was someone I loved, clearly hurting. It broke me to look at that picture knowing “what I don’t know about that look” would haunt their memories and dreams and thoughts and minds forever in an endless loop of replaying records, reverberating over and over and over again.
I knew that because I knew my grandfather. He was a WWII veteran, served in the Battle of the Bulge, and returned home from war an angry, bitter, violent, distraught man. That look on Jake’s face in that photo was a look I’d seen before on the face of my grandfather every day of his life.
That look sparked me diving into the world of PTSD/PTS also known as post traumatic stress, in an attempt to understand how someone that has been through obvious horror would proudly state, “I’d do it again for my family and friends.”
Trying to understand how Jake’s trauma affected him led me looking into a window of my own PTSD/PTS. I had no idea how my own traumas from childhood affected me in the way they had.
But this was a good thing, because it allowed me to really focus on my own healing meanwhile praying for Jake’s.
When I would come across those photos, while doing routine Facebook ‘check ups’ on Jake, God would put on my heart to pray for Jake’s heart to be restored. He would tell me to pray that “Jake’s heart be restored to before Iraq.” I never understood the relevance until years later proving yet again, to me, how amazing God truly is. But I prayed and prayed for years and years for Jake’s heart to be restored to ‘before’ that picture I would pray over. When Jacob’s body finally broke from the years of repeated trauma, it left him bedridden. God steered me away from praying for his body to heal. “That will come later, Erica, for now, please pray for his heart and his mind to be renewed,” God would tell me.
Again, not fully understanding, I could do nothing else but trust.
In 2015, Jake and I had a text conversation that left me wondering if I would ever hear from him again. I did, honestly, worry about losing him as a friend if I didn’t consent to his idea, however I did manage to remain hopeful that my ability to stand up for myself, holding true to who I was, would eventually come back to help me not hurt me. Although I wanted to be a pillar in his life at that moment, I was more interested in being a foundation.
For almost two years, I tried to get ahold of Jake. The first time I didn’t get a response, I thought he was either ignoring me or got a new phone number…so in the case of ignoring me, I attempted a couple more times until I got a response that said: “Who is Jake and Erica??” There it was. He changed his number was what I accepted.
During this time, Jake was in the darkest time of his life, losing hope at a rate of hemorrhaging proportions, even attempting suicide on more than one occasion.
Again in God’s perfect timing, days after one attempt, God sent an angel to guide him to Save A Warrior Foundation.
However, I had absolutely no clue. And neither did anyone around him, and Jake made sure to keep it that way. The demons had convinced him he was wearing the necessary “I’m fine” mask.
I had no clue demons had taken over his life in an all out attempt to wear him down so badly there would be no alternative but to die.
I had no idea in August of 2018, when God told me to pray for Jake like I’ve never prayed before, I would soon be battling real-life demons myself.
I didn’t even know I believed in demons. It took another elementary school friend named Rebecca pointing out the possibility.
On August 5, 2018 Jake texted me his new phone number, asked how I was doing, and if I needed any help on the ranch??
In my typical, “keep-him-at-a-distance, I can do it myself” fashion, I responded with “I got my family and friends helping me.”
We continued the conversation, leaving his visiting me open. It wasn’t until that day God spoke to me I really understood what was going on.
Sitting on my couch, exhausted, God says to me, “You’re an idiot!!” Which certainly got my attention. I knew right away it was God. I cannot explain how, but I knew it was His voice.
My face got instantly red, instantly I thought had done something wrong….”What did I do now??” I responded.
God grabbed my attention by firing back, “You’re sitting here exhausted, can’t even feed yourself. Jake Sawyer is offering to come help you, and you tell him you have friends and family to help. Where are they right now when you’re famished because you’re too tired to feed yourself because you’re too busy??”
“Are you going to live your life closed off and unavailable forever??”
I had no idea I was doing such a thing. My independence was keeping me from being vulnerable to let anyone else into any part of my life.
God was calling me out. Big time.
“If you keep pushing Jake away like that you will regret it.”
I was flooded with all kinds of thoughts and emotions. Was this really going to happen?? Jake doesn’t love Jesus like I do or like I need him to. How was I going to be ‘good enough’?? I doubted some major things in my mind. Immediately, I was met by God with a gentle but honest: “Do you trust me??”
“Do you trust that I can turn the most hardened heart around??”
“Do you trust that I can take your feelings of doubt and turn them into sparks of confidence??”
“Do you trust the promise of Ephesians 3:20…that I can do infinitely above all that you ask or imagine. Now think about all that you have asked or imagined of me….”
All of the things keeping me from allowing Jake Sawyer in my life were being chiseled away one by one, as God carefully peeled back the layers of my heart, revealing them, as if to show me something important. I was keeping myself from moving forward. There was nothing left to doubt now except my own self.
I knew people were not going to believe me, that God spoke to me with such prophetic authority, so I emailed a picture of the journal page to myself on September 14 which reveals that God told me “Jake Sawyer is going to marry you, Erica!!”
Clear as day, God said that to me!! From that moment forward, my life was about to change.
Jake and I were not really talking at all, merely corresponding every few days or so. I also was aware he was at UCLA Operation Mend (a thirty day PTSD/TBI program), so I tried to stay in close contact as much as I could, believing deep down he told me he was there for a reason.
Day after day, God guided me. I prayed.
The Holy Spirit guided me, while his enemies attempted to derail the plan in motion. Although I believed in demons and demon possession/attachment existed, I guess I never thought it would occur in my world. I began having strange occurrences happen to me especially at my home.
In some phone conversations with another elementary school friend named Rebecca, she enlightened me to the possibility I had a demon attachment. I was, after all, going through my entire house, cleaning out all nooks and crannies, purging everything I didn’t need anymore. I was also on a journey to marry someone God picked for me. This was a “Noah!! Build an ark moment”, and those demons knew it was going to take a lot of faith for me to do it.
Although my preconceived ideas about demons initially kept me from seeing what was really happening, I eventually had to make a choice which was set before me: Either let the demons take over forcing me to move somewhere else, or kick them out of MY house.
I went on a full on war to kick them out, which I documented on Facebook so, later, I would have a timeline to refer back to.
I started memorizing Psalm 27. Repeating it over and over, I started to believe in the power to drive them out, but they did not leave without some backlash first.
My automatic gate began opening and closing on its own, in the middle of the night. It makes a very loud pitch noise when it opens so that sound became a nightmare to me. No one likes the thought of someone entering their property when they’re alone, in the middle of the night.
I attempted to have the malfunction fixed and each time I did, something else would go wrong with the mechanics.
One night after a text conversation with Jake, I started to feel something I didn’t like at all. Suddenly I started to feel shame for something I had said to Jake earlier. My face turned red and hot—I could feel it instantly. My heart began to beat fast and my stomach felt this sort of dread like feeling which made me just want to curl up and die. What was going on??
The demons knew what thoughts would get under my skin.
One day I was going to purchase new furniture. I had just done a purge of my home so it was fitting to begin with starting new in the bedroom.
At the furniture store, I had a black widow spider in my purse. The automatic doors to the store would not open, causing the manager the come out and manually open them for me, commenting, “That’s some really weird stuff going on there.” As I passed by him, I thought to myself, “You have no idea…!!”
I worked my way through the store and settled on some furniture. As I was paying, a remote control the associate set on a table fell off the table then slid across the floor about five feet. I was unimpressed at this point with everything else that the demons attempted to throw at me, but the sales associate had a much different perspective—He wrapped up our transaction in record time.
One evening in my barn, I was praying hard. Really hard. I was in my living room, when I could feel the presence of something large looming over me, breathing down the back of my neck, a feeling of instant panic set in. I was so scared I didn’t know what else to do but run out to the barn and pray.
I have horses, so I always keep an extra manure fork head on hand, if one breaks. They are made from hard plastic and have some decent weight to them. I had a green one, resting on a top shelf in my hay barn, when it fell off the shelf, landing on top of my head— tines first. It hit me so hard, it knocked the wind out of me. I actually thought for a second someone had hit me over the head.
When I got my orientation back, the green rake head was wedged between my wheelchair and a hay bale. A good five feet away from where it sat on the shelf for years prior.
I had my gun on me, locked and loaded, ready to take on the culprit. But on a sunny, windless day, with no one in sight, I instantly knew what was happening. There were no amount of bullets that were going to kill this enemy. My gun was not going to work. I needed something more powerful than my 9mm pistol.
I prayed harder, and then I prayed harder.
I went inside my house, opened up all my windows and doors, and commanded by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ those demons leave. After summoning some more prayer power and spiritual cleansing angels, I felt as though the demons were finally on the retreat.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 5:12
It was later on that I discovered these demons were Jake’s “spirit guides” (aka. demons) he had invited into his life over the years, believing them to be ‘helpful’, when in truth they were guiding him and keeping him in places darker than hell. They had attached to me in an all out last-ditch-effort to keep Jake in that hell they jailed him in.
One afternoon in late September, while recalling Jake stating he had a TBI (traumatic brain injury), it dawned on me something rather remarkable. I had experience with TBI, when my boyfriend in high school suffered one after a devastating motorcycle accident, I experiened first hand how that demon can ravish relationships if not properly understood. God told me to lean on that knowledge moving forward.
In mid-October, when a 3am text message from Jake convinced me he really needed me where he was, God’s promise that Jake would marry me helped me drive off the fears I had about leaving, not to mention diving into an adventure with no clear road map.
I faithfully believed God’s promise would come true, however, I also needed to be pro-active in the matter. Sitting still was not going to get this accomplished!!
I had no idea what was in store for me when I left for Jake’s apartment on October 24, 2018. I left Phoenix for Las Vegas, knowing nothing other than: God told me Jake Sawyer was going to marry me, to not give up on him no matter how difficult things got, and to trust all the way. I deep down in my heart always cared for and loved Jake so I was excited to see how it would all play out.
I left on sheer faith, faith that what God told me was going to happen, but I had no idea how.
“Faithful is He who has called you who will also do it.” Were God’s encouraging words whenever I would question “How?”
“Let me show you, Erica, let me do it.”
Everyday I would get up and pray, “Lord, show me what to say, what to do, what not to say or do. Guide me Lord because I have no idea how this is going to play out.”
Everyday God would give me just what I needed to get through the day, totally trusting his promise would come to fruition.
Jake opened up more and more about things he hadn’t talked about since his Iraq deployment in 2002/2003. Our conversations became the trauma bonding experiences which helped seal the ultimate connection we always had.
I watched Jake struggle with the numerous medications he was taking and wanted so badly to tell him what I felt he needed to do. But instead of telling him what I thought he should do (or not do), I hit my knees in prayer. Jake’s guest bathroom became my prayer closet early in the mornings when I couldn’t sleep anyway. Sometimes tears would stream down my face; I was certain he could hear me crying, but I wasn’t giving up. God told me not to. I kept praying and, I kid you not, each time, God always answered.
Sometimes it would be weeks or days later, but other times it would be hours later when Jake would come to me with a revelation about what he thinks he should do, always relating to what I had prayed so hard about. This always left me encouraged to pray harder….and bigger.
The demons in Jake’s life were beginning to flee, however not without some backlash. They attempted to make my life miserable while I was there helping Jake.
Jake began acting as if he didn’t want me there. I felt as though he wanted to start fights with me. When I wouldn’t engage, he would get even more agitated.
“Was he trying to get me to leave??” I wondered.
Knowing what I know now….Yes, he was indeed trying to get me to leave. In his mind, everyone else has given up on him at this point, “so why not just give Erica a way out so no one gets hurt.”
His demons were absolutely sick of me.
But….again, God’s promise is what kept me going. Hope. Hope kept me believing.
I was not going to give up. Neither was God.
God’s timing continued to amaze me; On December 1, 2018, Jake was scheduled to go to a “Save a Warrior” cohort in Ohio, because the one in Malibu he originally signed up for had burned due to fires. Initially I was hesitant about him going because of all the pain he was in. Ohio was wicked cold in December, however, Jake’s stubbornness to go proved to be the best act of ‘athlete-Warrior’ of his life.
I was staying at his apartment taking care of his dog Ace, when Jake called me 5 days later. Tears streamed down my face as I listened to the voice of a changed man. I knew, in that moment, everything was going to be okay.
Granted it has been daily work for Jake since he returned from Save a Warrior but those tools he received while there has helped him build new railroad tracks to new places… places he hasn’t visited in over fifteen years.
PTSD does not just go away. It is something you live with every day of your life; it is just a matter of how you deal with it that makes a difference in healing.
The filling of a “God-sized hole” Jake was seeking, post-Iraq, with whatever numbing technique worked was finally filled at SAW (Save a Warrior). A combination of faith, prayer, hope, honesty, vulnerability, forgiveness, belief, courage, and truth allowed Jake to finally face his demons, slaying them one by one, slowly making him into the man I prayed for.
On December 9, Jake’s life changed when the Holy Spirit revealed to him the world in which he was living in: a fake one, one with no substance, no sustainability.
His heart was being transformed!!
“I felt as though my heart was being ripped from my chest and a new one was put in.” Jake said to me. When I had prayed all those years for a new heart, here was God answering that prayer, specifically, right before my eyes. I never told Jake I prayed for a new heart. I never said I prayed specifically for ‘before Iraq.” But those words, again, later became significant when Jake would discover it was Iraq that veered him off the good-hearted path he was originally on. It was Iraq that left him wounded with scars so deep it would take digging them out, with the worst kind of debridement, to begin the necessary healing. It was Iraq that changed his heart.
For fifteen years, those wounds remained open and seeping but never acknowledged. Like the children’s story goes, “there is no such thing as a dragon.” The dragon of Jake’s wounds were treated as if they never existed, compounding and fueling the PTSD and brain injury trauma he had sustained from an IED explosion in 2003.
Those wounds were being ripped open as I watched Jake’s face stream with tears of excitement for what God was showing him firsthand. Healing had begun.
From that day forward, Jake began a journey of healing. Meditation, prayer, the Bible…and faith. Which changed everything.
I have been a witness to the truth of the power of the spirit. I have watched Jake change before my eyes into the gentle, loving, kind, man-of-a-man he is and always was. The mask he wore for decades was no longer needed.
In December, in God’s perfect timing, Jake moved to Arizona with me because I needed support as my grandmother was dying. Jake’s role was now reversed. My chains were broken. He was now helping me and finally I was grateful to let that help in.
God ensured I would not say ‘no‘ a third time to my future husband….
So, without any doubt whatsoever, God’s will was for us to be ‘one’, On April 28, 2019, in a very private, intimate ceremony, Jake and I were married by an United States Air Force Chaplain, making the bond between us stronger than ever, living out God’s will for our lives.
Each day has been a miracle in itself, as we watch God grow us both up in ways we never thought possible. Jesus showed me I was good enough by just believing. Jesus showed Jake he was good enough by just living. In the end, the lie of “not good enough” was buried for good, revealing the truth of how “good enough” starts with hope in just one step forward, only looking back to see how far you’ve come.
Ephesians 3:20 says: “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”
Matthew 17:20 says: “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible. ”
Romans 8:28 says: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
God writes incredible stories. But perhaps I am a bit biased of mine. 😉.
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