Stan…By Me

Sometimes God will use the unusual to remind us to pray for those we don’t know, like the kids in our neighborhood and the family down the street.

It happened a few years ago at the house down the street. You know the one. The creepy one. No one knew for sure what was going on inside that house.

The kids in the neighborhood called it The Stan House. Very confusing since no one knew of anyone living there named Stan.

“Why do you kids call it The Stan House?” I asked the little munchkins.

“It’s haunted. Didn’t you know that?” A little one said.

“No, I didn’t know that, but why do you call it The Stan House?” I pressed.

“Well, we don’t like to say the real name, so we just say Stan.”

“Come on now, you can tell me. What is this real name you don’t want to say?”

“It’s haunted and really scary down there. We think somebody must be possessed or something. Stan is…the devil.”

Now I understood…the kids didn’t want to say Satan.

I assured our neighborhood younglings there was no reason to worry about a haunted house, and that they should stay away from The Stan House because it was private property. The last thing we needed were kids getting into trouble for being down there and then jabbering on about the devil house.

Over time, The Stan House was forgotten. Until the night it happened…

It was already dark when my husband and I leashed our two pups to go out for an evening walk. As soon as we got outside, we saw the police cars, lights flashing, down the street at…you guessed it…The Stan House.

Things happen all the time, and police are called for numerous reasons, so honestly, Stan wasn’t the first thing to come to mind. We walked the pups, watched to see any activity going on with the police, saw nothing, and went inside.

Case closed, right? Not so fast.

About an hour later, our son called to ask if we had seen the police. One of his close friends was an officer answering the call, and he had a most disturbing story to tell.

Police dispatch had received a call reporting a possible intruder. A patrol car was dispatched, and the officers arrived at the residence to a frantic, shaken family who had returned from vacation to find strange things going on in their home.

The officers searched the house, but found nothing. They saw no signs of a break-in. But even after assuring the family there was no one in the house, they still would not be consoled.

The wife was clearly distraught and nervous. They began to tell of coming home to find lights flashing and the faucets running. No one could have come in to play a trick because all the doors were locked and no windows were broken.

They told the officers things in the house had been moved. Doors inside the house that they knew had been closed were now open.

While the husband continued to tell the officers of seeing shadows and even faces in the mirrors, the nervous wife wrung her hands, muttering, “it’s ghosts, it has to be ghosts!” She burst into tears and the husband pulled his wife close to comfort her. He told the police they believed their house was haunted.

“There’s not much we can do about a haunted house,” our son’s friend had said. “We walked the whole family through their home to assure them no one was there, and promised to keep police patrols in the area.”

My husband and I could only look at each other. The Stan House, of course it was The Stan House.

Neighbors buzzed the next day about the police being at the house, but no one knew the details, except my husband and me. And we weren’t telling.

Stories did get around, and I worried all the talk about the incident would scare the neighborhood kids. I prayed for their peace, and for the family who had experienced the ordeal.

“But the Lord is faithful; He will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.”
~2 Thessalonians 3:3
“So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
~James 4:7
“This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; He is my God, and I trust Him.”
~Psalms 91:2

We’ll never know for sure what was going on inside The Stan House. We do know that the family moved out a couple of weeks after the occurrence. The house sat empty for a few months.

It’s been years since that night, and another family eventually moved into The Stan House. All is peaceful now, and there has been no other “hauntings“…at least, so far as I know.

From time to time, I still look down the street and wonder…and pray. Always, I pray.

“Pray without ceasing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:17