*STORY: Ghosts Mean God is Real

Victoria stared at her mirror at the foot of her bed, trembling. In the reflection she saw the clock on her night stand turn 4:05am. She was terrified to see the little boy again.

A couple years ago she stopped believing in a spiritual world, at least until last week. She was a professional scientist now, a defensible, educated, self-aware modern young woman.

Two years ago when she still went to church, a fragile older woman told their small group her apartment was haunted. The small group rolled their eyes and helped her find a new one. But Victoria happened to be looking for an apartment and because she was losing faith in any spiritual world, she grabbed that apartment right up.

But when Victoria woke up last Wednesday her lamp was mysteriously on. And in her mirror she saw a little boy at her night stand in his vintage overalls and missing a front tooth. She called the older woman and without telling her what had happened the old woman described a similar boy.

But now, shivering and desperate Victoria noticed in the reflection, light coming through the little keyhole in the nightstand's drawer. An opening in the back was probably letting the light on the wall come through. She hesitantly sat up and opened the drawer. In it she saw her old prayer journal. She read the entries that chronicled her dying faith. On the last written page she read,"God, if you won't show yourself to me, you are either not real, or you do not love me."

Something in her mind clicked into place and peace flooded her whole body. She had been so scared because the ghost was only a couple feet from where she slept. But she realized God had been even closer, this whole time. Her logic deducted with undeniable clarity that if this ghost was real, the spiritual world was real as well. And this meant that not only was God real, but that he cared enough to bring her to this moment to answer her prayer.

Blurry eyed, she looked at the key hole and remembered how the fragile old woman had left her the key on the counter with a note that said, "Victoria, God holds the key to your heart." Victoria had rolled her eyes, locked her journal in the drawer and quickly forgotten where she had put the key.