The season of ghosts and goblins is upon us, and people decorate their homes with images of the haunted and the macabre. But the truth is, the most terrifying hauntings aren’t found in old graveyards or abandoned houses. They live most often quietly in the human heart. Long after the last trick-or-treater has gone home, these phantoms remain, whispering in the dark corners of memory, robbing us of peace. Here are seven things that haunt people the most.

1. Regret

Many lie awake at night, replaying moments they would give anything to change – words they shouldn’t have spoken, opportunities they let slip away, choices that sent their lives down darker roads. They live in the shadow of what might have been – unable to forgive themselves for what they did – or failed – to do.

2. Guilt and Shame

The memory of sin is a terrible tormentor; worse still is the unrelenting feeling that somehow one’s life is irreparably flawed. They hear the accuser’s relentless, lying voice. Sometimes it’s faint – sometimes fierce – reminding them of offenses and mistakes in the past. This wretched haunt lurks in the whisper that says their misdeeds are too great for forgiveness or change. They seem doomed to roam a spiritual graveyard, chained to the tombs of their transgressions, blind to the dawn’s breaking light.

3. Unforgiveness

Someone hurt them deeply. They were betrayed, abandoned, or abused, and they can’t let it go. They feed their bitterness like a fire, imagining it protects them, when it only burns inward, consuming the soul. The offender usually moves on with little or no thought, but the wounded remain chained to the past, imprisoned by the bitterness and anger they will not forgive and release.

4. Broken Relationships

These poor souls are estranged from their children or maybe a once-close friend. What broken relationship could be more haunting than a marriage lying like a ghost between two living souls – its love long dead but its memory refusing to rest? They scroll through old messages, revisit moments of tenderness turned to tragedy, and wonder whether anything could have saved what was lost.

5. Failure

Some feel they’ve disappointed everyone – God, family, and themselves. They wear a smile for the world but privately mourn a life that they believe never measured up. In their own estimation, they are the ghost of the person they once hoped to be.

6. Absence of Meaning

Perhaps the most dreadful apparition is not death, but a life absent of purpose. Many reach old age haunted not by what they did, but by what they lived for. They look back and see years filled with continuous motion but little or no real direction – successes that once glittered now seem hollow, pleasures that promised so much, but only delivered a passing distraction. They realize too late that they climbed ladders leaning against the wrong walls.

7. Emptiness

Others wander through life with a sense that it has all amounted to much less than they ever hoped. They may have money, success, and admiration, but feel hollow. This haunting is not so much about what they’ve done but what they’ve become – souls drifting through their own success without meaning or peace – ever hungry for something that never satisfies. They are like the man Jesus described, who was in hell desirous of only a drop of water on his tongue, but their thirst never quenched. Their souls are like black holes – ever consuming, but never filled. Figuratively speaking, they are in hell.

These are the worst of hauntings. The human spirit is afflicted with regret, guilt, bitterness, estrangement, failure, absence of purpose, and emptiness. They hiss that there’s no redemption, no way to begin again. But thank God, this isn’t true. While there is breath, there is still hope.

There is One who walks through the haunted halls of human hearts and speaks peace. His name is Jesus. Where the past condemns, He forgives and makes the slate clean. Where guilt and shame accuse, He silences them with grace. Where bitterness festers, He gives strength to forgive and release it. Where relationships lie in ruins, He offers reconciliation – if not with others, at least with God Himself. Where failure crushes, He redeems and restores. Where purpose is absent, He calls anew. Where emptiness reigns, He satisfies the soul’s yearnings as nothing else can.

The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the world’s great exorcism. It casts out the demons that torture the human spirit and replaces them with the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. For the one who trusts in Him, the haunting ends. The graveyard of the heart becomes a living garden of grace.

So, when children dress as ghosts and monsters this Halloween, remember: the scariest things are not in the streets but in the soul, and the only light bright enough to banish the fearful darkness forever is the One that shines from an empty tomb.