8/12/2017 0 Comments Fear or FaithA few months ago while on a trip to Texas with friends, I had the misfortune of being trapped in a small shelter during a severe thunderstorm. The area of the country I am from is known for its tornados so hiding in a cramped space for a few hours while nature played havoc with cars and trees was nothing new. The only thing that made it more disconcerting than normal was my unfamiliarity of the area. I had no idea what towns or streets the local news people were talking about when we were able to catch an occasional weather report. During this time, I found out that one of my traveling companions had an incredible fear of storms. I wondered how she made it through storm season in Oklahoma without heavy reliance on wine and valium.
During one of the calm moments, she asked us if we had any fears that were similarly paralyzing to her own phobia. “What are you afraid of?” she asked each of us in turn. Mumbled, embarrassed replies that nothing incapacitated the others answered her, and then it was my turn. “What are you afraid of?” She nudged my foot with her toe when my answer wasn’t forthcoming, I struggled with an honest answer. And then blurted out one of my greatest and yet most embarrassing fears. “The Dark” I said. It was the truth, in part. The answer I had been pondering that was so much closer to reality was “Everything”. I was terrified of everything. Anxiety and unreasonable fear had both been my constant companions since I was a kid. They have motivated so many of the decisions I have made and chances I have taken, or not taken. As a kid, I loved to sing and dance, but suffered from stage fright (I actually peed myself at my tap recital in 4th grade). This fear led me to compromise trying out for any of the lead parts in the plays or musicals at my school. I was content to stay in the background as an extra. I would cringe every time a wrong note was hit by the girl that got the part I wanted. I would grit my teeth as the leads stumbled over the lines I had memorized, but would never recite. And I would dance with grace and energy during the ensemble performances, hoping to be noticed and yet not seen simultaneously. I also had a strange fear of losing an appendage out a car window while driving down the street. My mom read us a book about manners that featured “arm/leg-out-the-window-nitwits” I’m not kidding. This terrifying book featured stick figures making dumb decisions that caused them great bodily harm. My mom had a near fatal car accident when I was around 6. After that, she would always tell my sister and I that May Avenue, a busy thoroughfare in our area, was a death trap. After that I envisioned every trip in the car ending with gruesome consequences. Large piles of dismembered bodies scattered across May Avenue, a grotesque stack of arms and legs on the street corners, and a menacing trap grabbing at cars as they drove by were very real thoughts in my overactive imagination. I was terrified of arriving late to class in college, I didn’t want to look like a slacker/loser. If the door was already closed when I got there, I would turn and walk away, subsequently, I missed tests, quizzes, and lectures necessary to passing. My GPA plummeted because of my fear of failure. Weird twist. I felt like everyone knew more than I did and I was afraid to look stupid so I never asked questions, therefore, I never had any answers so my fear of looking dumb caused me to be woefully uninformed. I graduated from college several years after I should have, not because I lacked the hours or grades to graduate, but because I feared looking like a dumbass when I inquired about receiving my degree. My fear of looking stupid caused me to a refuse to apply for a Master’s program I was interested in attending so I wouldn’t get rejected. I feared the uncertainty of a future with chances and settled for a present of mediocrity with no risk. I stayed up late while anxieties danced through my head only to be a sleepy zombie the next day. Muddled thoughts and distorted wisdom shaped every choice I made while I was awake. Each choice presented was plagued with downfalls and probabilities that I would chase into dark rabbit holes until I would always choose the less risky, safer option. I would approach every new person with the idea that we would be friends for a brief time until they got to know me and left. I couldn’t allow anyone in because once they saw the real me, they would run for the hills. My fears isolated me. And those were just the ones I had the could be classified as social anxiety. I also had the odd phobia or two that caused my heart to beat uncontrollably. The weirdest of these was an intense fear of Persian rugs. I feared being wound up in one with my arms pinned against my side and slowly suffocating in the grasp of itchy, hand-knotted wool rugs that were red. The blue rugs never bothered me, just the red. I was afraid of tall building falling down on me as I walked down the sidewalks in the city, and afraid of the lack of people in the country. The dark of dense forests creeped me out almost as much as the sparseness of the desert and the openness of the plains. Crashing waves at the beach could suck me out to a gruesome death in the grips of a hammerhead, and the murky depths of a lake hid all sorts of gross consequences. Then there was the summer when I was 7 that I developed an incredible fear of swimming! I remember when I collapsed on the deck of my grandparents pool in agonizing pain. Suddenly, the smell of chlorine and the sound of wind through the willow leaves could send me into convulsions. My fear of the dark stuck with me the longest. My husband, a sweet yet not always understanding guy, would flip off all the lights and run upstairs, laughing as I stumbled into doors. My panic would be so intense, I would run full force into walls and chairs as I attempted to dash upstairs. My already large nose took the brunt of one of those frightful flights causing quick tears to form from pain, humiliation, and fear; after that the teasing stopped. Of course, I had a fear of crying that triggered anger on my part and any engendered sympathy quickly dissipated. I was afraid to speak up and afraid to keep quiet, afraid of being too bold or too timid, afraid to move and afraid to sit still. I was afraid of everything. And then my youngest child had an accident when he was 10months old that almost cost him his life. Watching a tiny blue body being pulled from a wading pool puts a different perspective on everything. Resuscitating an infant that has no pulse and isn’t breathing causes all the other ridiculous fears to fade. The sepia tones of my nightmares were replaced by the bright lights of the hospital emergency rooms. My odd moments of panic had a focal point now. The feeling of complete and total helplessness as total strangers worked to save my son’s life left me weary, and the only rest I found came from prayer. As I prayed through that evening and the next day, I clung to every scripture I could remember. This was during the pre-bible app era so I was drawing from a limited well of knowledge, but I found comfort in the process. The odd thing about my turning to God for that one outcome was the calmness I found for the other irrational fears I sometimes suffered from. I realized the marauding packs of Chihuahuas weren’t lurking around every corner to eat my ankles as I ran from their razor sharp teeth. I realized that I could actually stick my hand out the window of a moving vehicle without it being cut off by a passing big rig. It dawned on me that the possibility of being rolled up in large rug and inhaling lethal amounts of dust mites were minimal. All my fears hadn’t protected me or my children from anything, they had simply prevented me from leading the life that God intended. It was a gradual process, but I let God have my doubts, my fears, my phobias; and I started to embrace the life he intended for me to have. Small steps of obedience in spite of the trepidation led to gentle victories. I started leading a bible study, a girl scout troop, and Cub Scout Den. I didn’t know if I was capable of any of these things, but I listened to His whisper and stepped up. And I was sober during all of it! The courage giving strength I used to receive from alcohol during college wasn’t needed. Every ridiculous fear started to fade as I prayed. The scriptures that quote the angels saying “Fear Not” echoed in my ears. I’m not supposed to be timid or mousey or anxious. Whether my old fears were normal, absurd, or understandable didn’t matter. All worry and trepidation can be given to God. “What are you afraid of?” My friend asked that dark night. “Everything” would have been an apt reply not too long ago. “Nothing” isn’t quite the right answer either, at least not yet. When the old anxieties start to surface I recite Philippians 4:6 – “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God”, and the cares of the world start to fade. Fear prevents us from living the life we are given; faith provides the courage to live in spite of our fears. Time to choose the correct “F” word for the remainder of my life.
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AuthorI am a Christian, a wife, a mom, and a part-time basket case who wants to be a full time writer.
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