What Do I Do With My Fear?

 Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and start to imagine the worst. I think of all the things that could be going wrong in this moment. I imagine what might possibly be harming my kids, both from without and within. I may dabble in worry for a time before other imaginings take over. My mind may go down a spiral and end up with the whole world falling apart - not only rumoured wars, but actual wars, disrupting the safety of all who inhabit planet earth. 

I think of those who prepare for the end of the world and imagine them as lonely wanderers on the earth, finding all the others who prepared and stepping over the carnage of those who weren't (us among them!) Then, when I've mused about all this, I swing back to the immediate and wonder how we'll make it through the next week or month. Is it just me, or do our own hearts sabotage our rest, feeding us with potential far-off, unlikely fears, while also tasting a daily dose of very potential and likely fears that loom in the shadows just around the corner?

I've had a lifetime of 46 years so far to work this issue through in my own soul, and I've had some successes here and there, and a whole lot more soul-rabbit-trailing than I would have liked. It is not my intention to wallow in fear, or even to wallow in shame for feeling such fears, but to ignore that this is in an issue means to give my natural and unnatural fear free reign to wreak havoc in me - and in those around me, as it is impossible for fear to have no spill-over to others. 

We long for safety, predictability, dependability of relationships, of the roof over our heads, of shelter, sustenance. And I live with an illusion that I have these things, and that they will be permanent in my life. Oh how I long for permanence! And this longing fuels fears of scarcity - being without. Here are some things I fear:

Losing loved ones to the ultimate enemy: Death

Losing comfort of a working body - living in and with pain or constant difficulty

Losing a sense of myself, brain damage

Losing relationships to change or altered circumstances - those who move away

Pain, suffering, grief

Being without, being in debt, facing hardship and scarcity

I fear the days and years passing without taking opportunities of growth or productivity

I fear not being able to make it through another difficult day

I fear all that could harm my kids and ruin their lives - be that their own unwise choices or those of others

I fear threats to our physical and emotional safety, whatever and wherever they may be. 

I'm afraid of crushing sorrow, of God giving me more than I can handle, which surely seems to be a reality at times. 

Once in a while, I'm even afraid of what others think of me, though not much and not often.

My fears mount. These are just a few of the many, many things that can overtake me in a matter of minutes. What do I do with all this fear?! 

Tonight I awoke and the fears began to creep in. And I said, 'What's with this, heart of mine? Oh Sarah, why are you in this state?' I talk to myself, if not to God. And I imagine God in the conversation, listening to the dialogue between my actual self and my investigating self. I say, 'Here's the deal. Anything can happen. My kids can be in the other room, up out of bed instead of asleep. They could have taken a late night escapade to a local eatery and be crashing their car at this very moment. Or, relatives in other places could this moment be struggling with a deep difficulty that is unknown to me, or I could fall asleep now and wake up in heaven due to a random health-event...'  Investigating Sarah retorts: 'Do you even hear yourself?' She turns to God and says, 'Do You hear what she's saying?! What's with you, fearful one?'

I pause and notice how the fear lands in me. My chest is a bit tight, my breathing picked up pace, my body feels too hot and my brow is furrowed. Fear hijacks peace. I cannot rest, and if I sleep, I'll awaken with my hands in tight fists, gripping a wad of blanket, and cold sweat on my fingers where blood should be warming them, but can't because I've squeezed out all circulation. I remember waking up some mornings with a sudden start and my muscles tense, as if I need to hold my body up off my mattress because then I'll be able to fight off an unseen, imagined enemy more quickly...or something. Who knows what that something is? 

So, fear has been my sometimes companion (not a friendly one, I'll grant). I understand it to some degree - part of the things that I've been faced with in life have led me to have an instinctive over-active radar that picks up on potential threat constantly. Fear is a present reality that I must hold open before God and the purview of my own inner gaze and give it the attention it demands. I tell God how much I want safety and predictability, and when I'm absolutely terrified, it's all I can do to simply imagine myself curling up into His big, strong arms, and wailing like an inconsolable child. I imagine the love of a kind Father washing over me with words like, "I know, little one, I know, I know, I know. It hurts. You're scared. I'm here."

I feel in that moment that the Lord is taking words from the pages of His book and speaking them just to me: "Oh Lord, You have searched me and You know me, You know when I sit and when I rise..." If I were the Psalmist, I would have said, "You know when fears overtake me and why. You know all the rational and irrational fears before I've considered one of them. You know all that I have faced and all I will face." 

My fears don't immediately dissipate. But they do morph somewhat. You know what they morph into? Grief. Sadness. Pain.

The constriction of fear ultimately is a mask to feeling anything. It feels caustic to my heart, like a steel cage that shuts it up and won't let the pulse of life flow. Fear holds back pain for me. It is sometimes easier to fear the irrational than to grieve the loss of safety I've already known.

I'm so familiar with fear, it's as if its flavor has turned from spicy to dull. Fear has numbed me. Fear that if my heart can feel its own very real grief, it will explode in a million pieces on the floor and I'll never be put back together again, like my inner Humpty Dumpty has gone and done it again.

What I do with my fear is I stare it boldly in the face and ask what it wants from me. Does it want to own me? Well, it can't. But sometimes it does, just by accident. I talk to my fear. I talk to myself in my fear. There are of course, soul-antidotes to fear. Like taking medicine for a cold, there are ways to hold and unfold the tightly wound mess of fear that sits like dead weight on an already stretched-to-the-limit soul. 

Sometimes it means I need to pay attention to my thought life, to what I expose myself to. Sometimes it means I need to seek support of others, who wisely hold it with me, who give space and time to the fear that is hindering my progress and functioning. Sometimes it means I need to withdraw from the busyness and take time to pray, alone, in the quiet, in solitude and silence. 

It seems fear can't just leave me alone. After the events in 1999 when our home was invaded in the middle of the night, and violence ensued, I had night after night of mind-blowing fear. I was afraid to fall asleep, sure the 2 intruders that escaped would be making another fateful and dangerous visit. I was hypervigilant, thinking I had to be ready to jump out the window and get the police. This went on, night after night. I would doze off, then jerk myself awake in a panic. It was horrible - the physical strain of sleep deprivation, and the emotional toll of constant fear, just sucked all the life out of me, until I could barely make it through the day. At that time, all I knew to do was to curl up at the foot of my parents' bed (mind you, I was 22 at the time), and envision what could, very realistically happen. I would imagine what it would be like to face the intruders a second time. I would imagine a violent and terrifying death. And then I'd imagine being in perfect peace, at rest in Jesus. And I'd begin to ponder what it meant for me, that my safety in eternity was secure. That I could trust and count on a glorious welcome into that eternal life that I had only tasted the beginning of here in this very temporary life. The only way for me to deal with those crushing fears was to find the one predictable thing that I'd always known: Jesus will take me to Himself when it's the right time. 

You see, I've gone through this before. Why didn't that cure me? Why didn't that fix it? Why do I still have fear? When I ask any 'why' questions, it's always a clue that there is a rumbling in my soul. That there is something more than a quest for information. Mostly it is a protest, a complaint, a resistance. Answering the 'why' question generally doesn't yield a satisfied heart. The quest is for comfort more than for reason. 'Why' questions are so deceptive. They make us think we want an answer, when what we really want is for our suffering to end. When I ask 'why' it' usually because there is grief deep inside me that I can't access. 

I'm like this because I need to grieve more, to hold my very real fears open to the healing balm of love - perfect love - that casts out every fear. The question deep down seems to be: "Will You love me, God? When my heart is breaking, when fears overwhelm, when my soul simply can't take ONE. MORE. THING. Will You hold me, be there, console this hurting child of Yours?" 

I turn to the Book of Books and find those familiar words, the words I need to hear, to be told, to be filled with, to savor, to soak in, to take deep within and feast on the riches of love:

"But now thus says the Lord,

he who created you, O Jacob,

    he who formed you, O Israel:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

    I have called you by name, you are mine.

 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

    and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

    and the flame shall not consume you.

 For I am the Lord your God,

    the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

I give Egypt as your ransom,

    Cush and Seba in exchange for you.

 Because you are precious in my eyes,

    and honored, and I love you,

I give men in return for you,

    peoples in exchange for your life.

Fear not, for I am with you;

    I will bring your offspring from the east,

    and from the west I will gather you.

 I will say to the north, Give up,

    and to the south, Do not withhold;

bring my sons from afar

    and my daughters from the end of the earth,

 everyone who is called by my name,

    whom I created for my glory,

    whom I formed and made.”  (Isaiah 43)

My soul-questions are welcomed by God, just as I am. Fear is going to visit me. I am going to face pain, sorrow, discomfort. I am going to experience un-safety. These are real things and part of what it is to be human. But I need never fear being abandoned by God. Being alone in the storms of life. In exploring my fears, I've often concluded that I need to learn to fear some things even more. I've learned to understand that some fear is healthy - like the fear of burning myself if I touch the hot stove. Fear isn't always bad. But fear that keeps me caged inside myself, that traps me away from my own ability to feel the sadness in me, that keeps me from connected relationships - this kind of fear IS bad. It deflects me from integrating hard, painful experiences into my own whole-life story. It cuts me off from myself, and from receiving the comfort God longs to give. Fear is an opportunity to open my soul to the pain that is already there. 

Unlike the phrase, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," I'd like to propose a different perspective, "The only thing we have to fear is unrecognized, unaddressed, and unnoticed fear."

Fear that isn't addressed can be all-consuming. Well do I know it.

God invites me to place my fears in His capable hands, and to face the coming days with Him not only at my side, but in me and in every circumstance that threatens to explode my soul. When Jesus fed the 5000, He told the disciples to gather up what was not eaten so that none of it would be lost. Every fragment of my life is precious and useful when placed in His hands - even the fragments of fear. He is gathering up the pieces of me, the pieces that might otherwise fall by the wayside. He is gathering me and telling me I matter, my fears matter to Him. He will not lose any part of the miraculous work He's done in my life. My suffering, my grief, my pain, will not be wasted. I trust He will make an abundance of my life, of my humble offering of myself, simple and basic as I may be. 

The little boy who offered up his lunch to Jesus didn't know his 5 loaves and 2 fish would not only feed a multitude, but speak to millions upon millions of people in the generations to come. I am convinced there is a message for each of us in this miracle recorded in the pages of Scripture. That the humble offering of our lives, placed in Jesus' good hands yields a miraculous return. I am simply a few loaves and fish. I show up with what I think I might need, only to discover the needs of my life are so much more than what I showed up with. And Jesus can multiply what I bring, and all that seems to be left behind is not forgotten, is not wasted, is not for nothing. "Gather it up that nothing be lost." I don't want to be lost. I'll allow myself to be gathered up and multiplied to the expansion of God's kingdom - the Kingdom of Peace. 

"Peace I leave with you" says Jesus. And I receive it. I taste and begin to see, even with eyes so dim, but ever brightening, that He is indeed Good.

And this goodness is balm to my fearful, quivering, soul. I taste, and taste, and taste again, until I am fed and a feast is prepared. 

"You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies."

That enemy of fear within me can wait while I sit at a banquet prepared by my Good Shepherd. This table holds back the fear that would eat me alive.

That's what I do with my fear.