Fear Dissolving Into Hope
My story isn’t finished yet
Most days my story begins the same. I wake up early, I shower, I make coffee, and I spend whatever time I have quietly summoning God’s presence and His acceptance of me before work, alone, in prayer, reading, listening and sometimes writing. Once in a while I think I write something that may have some value to someone else so I will share it on social media, on Medium, or hand it to someone to read. I don’t do this in order to bring attention to myself and what I can do. I know quite well my shortcomings.
If I was to self-assess, this is what I would say.
I live in constant fear.
I was watching a video of myself singing a song at church. I t was a song that I wrote about hope and trust. God gave me those words. I watched my shoulders tighten. I could see myself concentrating so hard on getting it right. I watched myself get it wrong and quickly recover. I knew I thought I was smiling at parts, but it was in my head, not on my face. I got compliments after. People were kind. I enjoy singing, but I am not a performer. I stand in front of no one comfortably.
I enjoy a few things in life, but am not…..
I love water, but am not a swimmer. I love snow, but am not a skiier, I love reading, but have comprehension and memory issues, so it curtails what I read, how long and how often. Most books I have started I have yet to finish.
Fear keeps you on a ferris wheel. It just goes round and round but you always end up exactly where you began.
I never have liked ferris wheels. They stop too frequently. At the top they enable you to see out far and wide for a few seconds, but then they start up again and take you around and when they stop again you are hanging at the 2:00 point, suspended in the overhang. Nausea comes and then it’s time to move again. By the end of the ride, you are where you started, a little less stable, wondering….why?
Fear is the reason I stay, it is the reason I leave, it is the reason I quit. Is there any hope?
“At least there is hope for a tree; if it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant. But a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.” (Job 14:7–10 NIV)
There are perhaps more similarities between Job and me than differences.
He lived in the time of the patriarchs and was well endowed with the knowledge of God, but,
still, like me, he wavered between hope and despair.
He lost everything at once.
Sudden destruction on a dare of Satan ended up producing the results of a contrite heart that apparently God saw needed in Job’s life. I don’t know much about gambling, but I don’t believe God gambles with anyone’s life. If Satan wants to make a wager against it, it is always to his demise. God chose Job, because He knew Job.
A slow crumbling of a life and life’s purposes as I understand it with my natural eyes can produce that same wavering between hope and despair. Coupled with fear, a slow paralysis can take place.
It is still that same hope that I know, yet don’t always recognize and act upon that is my deliverance.
If I am afraid to do everything, then why not do something?
Get off the ferris wheel.
“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” (2 Tim 1:7 NIV)
I am not afraid of God. He has redeemed me, loves me, and makes that clear every day. What is it I fear and where does it come from? My own mind, my own assessment of myself, my own evaluations and yes, from circumstances that seem to bring loss. But all these things in themselves are not designed to destroy me. They are to instruct me and deliver me into my hope, not drive me into more fear.
Choices are mine to make. Whatever they are will be a teacher to me. The sadness comes when I refuse to acknowledge or learn that I need to be taught. The only fear that can overtake you completely is the fear that it is God’s purpose to destroy you, and never to let Him instruct you. That is what Job learned, that God had a plan to bless him that outweighed anything he could ever possess, whether it be people or earthly provision.
Everything and everyone will pass on this earth, at some time, in some way. What matters is my relationship with Christ and being what He wants me to be. I may not be a lot of things, but there are a few that I am because God says I am.
I am beloved…
I am redeemed…
I am forgiven…
I am a warrior…
When I realize who has me held captive in my fear, then perhaps the tone of the story will change. I’m not finished writing it yet. As long as I have a heart to seek Him, I have hope. And that is what He told me to write about. So, yes, I am a writer.
