✝️ God vs Demons: The Smurl Family and the Test of Faith

 

✝️ God vs Demons: The Smurl Family and the Test of Faith

When I left the cinema after watching The Conjuring: Last Rites, my mind wasn’t stuck on Hollywood jump scares. It was fixed on something deeper — the real case behind the movie: the Smurl family of West Pittston, Pennsylvania. Janet and Jack Smurl were not reckless thrill-seekers dabbling in the occult. They were ordinary, church-going Catholics raising four daughters alongside Jack’s parents. And yet, they became the victims of one of the most terrifying cases of demonic infestation Ed and Lorraine Warren ever investigated.

The question that haunts me is this: if God is real — and if faith protects us — why does evil sometimes target the devout?

👿 Evil Targets Faith

I can’t shake this thought: evil doesn’t waste its time on those who don’t believe. If you already live without faith, what’s the point in attacking? Evil prefers to be blasphemous. It goes after people strong in faith, mocking their prayers and twisting their devotion. If someone is already living in sin, they’re halfway down the path anyway — easy to manipulate. But for the faithful? That’s where the real war is fought.

🕯️ The Smurl Family’s Ordeal

From the early 1970s, the Smurls endured drawers opening on their own, radios blasting, shadow figures gliding through walls, and children being hurled from their beds at night. Even their dog was attacked. In one of the darkest events, Jack was assaulted by a succubus — a demonic force that mocked God’s creation by twisting intimacy into horror.

Ed Warren put it simply: disbelief is the cloak the devil hides behind. Evil thrives in silence, logic, and doubt — but when it strikes, it aims to fracture families, faith, and sanity.

The cruelest twist came not from the demons, but from the Church. The Smurls turned to their parish priest, desperate for help, and were told the priest didn’t have time for them. Imagine suffering over a decade of torment, only to be dismissed by the very institution you’ve devoted your life to. Their faith wasn’t just tested by spirits in the dark — it was tested by human indifference.

✝️ God’s Power and Strange Timing

The Warrens tried everything: relics, prayer, exorcisms. Priests were brought in. Some attempts gave relief, but the torment always returned. It seemed as though God Himself was waiting. Eventually, through unexpected channels, the case reached Rome. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — who would later become Pope Benedict XVI — intervened and sent an exorcist to the family home.

Finally, the haunting ended.

Lorraine Warren later reflected that perhaps God allowed this drawn-out battle so His power could be shown in the end. The faithful aren’t exempt from attack — they’re sometimes chosen as examples. Not chosen to be destroyed, but to demonstrate resilience, to prove that faith can endure the longest night.

🌍 Reflection

The Smurl case reminds us that the real war isn’t Hollywood’s spinning crosses and flickering lights. It’s a spiritual war, invisible but very real. Demons, if they exist, don’t just rattle doors and throw chairs. They whisper doubts. They erode trust. They want to turn believers into cynics.

And yet, in the end, faith can hold. The Smurls didn’t give up on God, even when their own Church turned them away. That is perhaps the greatest lesson: the battle between God and demons isn’t about avoiding suffering — it’s about whether we keep faith through it.

✨ I’ve spent years studying the paranormal. I’ve seen how people wrestle with what they cannot explain. And if the Smurl case teaches me anything, it’s this: faith isn’t a shield that keeps you safe from all harm — it’s the strength that carries you through it.