I Broke Up With Fear

How can I survive this world?  How can I face the day when the tragedy and terror is creeping in?  When the stories on my news feed are more frequent and closer to home?  How can I do everything right to keep myself safe and my kids safe?  What about my parents and others that I love?  What do I do when bad things happen?

When I was raising my kids, bad things happened.  They had accidents that could have had much more severe outcomes.  There were times that our safety was threatened.  My awareness for the pain in the world and possibility for pain in my life became more heightened.  Fear became a constant voice in my mind.

Fear was not only running around in my head, it had a grip on my heart.  It would wake me up after a beautiful day with my family and parade images in my mind that were not reality.  In turn, I would try to come up with new strategies and plans that would guarantee protection and peace.

Fear was a driver.  It drove me to arrange things and avoid things.  It had a front seat and would coach me through realities with “what if”.  I imagined that other people couldn’t see it because I hid it well.  I engaged enough to cover it.  I learned a language that promoted safety and masked itself as wisdom.  I could talk myself into believing I was not trying to control outcomes and sell that belief with “I know God is in control but I am helping”.  “I know God is my provider but I have a back up plan.”

This is the extreme of my struggle with fear.

The fruits of fear are insecurity, worry, anxiety, control, manipulation, anger, jealousy, competition and sabotage.

There has to be a better way to live.

I came to terms with my fear.  The terms were:  I AM NOT LIVING WITH YOU ANYMORE.  Period. End of story.  I am not entertaining you. I am not planning for the worst thing to happen.  I am not giving up my peace anymore.

This became my pursuit.  A better way to live.  When fear would try to motivate my decisions, I would push through and take the risk.  Instead of letting it drive me crazy, I let it drive me to God.  When it would wake me up in the middle of the night, I would pray.

I realized that my peace would never come from trying to avoid pain.  I’ve been in pain.  I’ve experienced loss and grief.  I know I cannot plan and arrange my life well enough to have the security that silences fear.  There are things that are out of my control.  There are people who are out of my control.

I asked God to open my eyes so I could see where fear was a filter in me and he did.  The picture that comes to mind is a river with big boulders rerouting the water. Then rocks that are seen when the boulders are gone.  Then the stones that are scattered around that I can avoid if I’m looking.  At times, it’s a pebble in my shoe that causes me to adjust my gate until I pause what I’m doing and remove it.

This is my journey… freedom from fear. I trust you God, no matter what.

Bad things happen.  When I think about the pain people are experiencing, it is hard to imagine their depth of grief.  It takes my breath away.  I can’t go through my day without them on my mind.  It makes it hard to fully believe that I can trust God no matter what.  But I choose to.  I choose to say NO WAY and I’m breaking up with fear.

“Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves… and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”  Romans 8:28 The Message

Thank you God, that you open the eyes of the blind…. And that is me.

Jesus, be present.  Comfort us.  Heal wounds.  Bring hope and freedom.

Thankful for Freedom

A while ago I was with some women who lead various ministries. Each person had a “Thankful” focus at their place setting to think about and share with the group.  As each of the 8 of us shared, it was amazing to hear the different things we are all thankful for.  My question was:

“What is something that has taken a long time to develop or come to pass that you are thankful for?”

I kept trying to come up with a very meaningful, profound answer.  I thought about my children… they take a lot of time to grow!  I thought about all the things I’ve experienced in my 46 years… relationships that I’ve had for a long time.  My attention kept coming back to one thing:  Freedom.

When I truly understand what God has done for me, rescued me from a dead end life and saved me from living in the fear the enemy had convinced me of, I am eternally grateful.  I think about the anger and control I was managing in the early years of parenting and I cringe.   I was so caught up in defending myself and protecting myself from getting hurt that I was hurting the ones I loved the most.

By God’s grace, I finally got sick and tired of myself and began to understand the enemy’s strategies against me.  He had me convinced I needed to manage my people and problems so I wouldn’t experience pain, rejection, discomfort or hurt.

So today, I am most thankful for Freedom.  I’m thankful that I don’t have to live like that anymore.  I believe what the Word of God says about me.  I can embrace what Jesus did for me on the cross when he defeated sin and death.  I can change.  I’m not hopeless!  I’m not stuck!

Don’t get the wrong impression that I’ve arrived!  The measure of freedom I have found continues to increase as I choose it every day.  In the past few months, God has revealed some ways I have been protecting and defending myself.  Ugh!  As challenging as it is to change, deep down, I don’t want to stay that way.

I am continuing my journey and doing the work of replacing the lies with the truth that He is my defender.  He is my protector.  He knows what I need and is working out His freedom in me as I surrender to Him.

I have some wins!  I have some understanding that trading the lies for the truth is worth it.  I have friends who have found freedom in areas I’m asking God to bring to me.  I don’t want to stay stuck in any way and I hope you don’t either.

 “If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.”  John 8:31-31