Fear

            Fear is something I think about a lot.  I think about it so that I don’t let it get the better of me.  It was something that I thought a lot about as I was deciding about, first, whether or not to come to seminary, and second, which seminary to go to.  Did I believe that the God who created me, loves me, and knows my flaws would still call me?  Did I believe that God would equip me?  Did I believe that the God who called and equipped me would take care of me?  If I believe all of that then what is there to fear?  Where will I not be willing to go?  What will I not be willing to do?

            And it’s easy to say, but it’s a thought process that requires continual maintenance.  Fear sneaks up on me easily, and I don’t always recognize it initially.  And even when I reject it with my mouth and mind it sometimes takes a while for my heart to catch up.  I don’t want to act (or not act, as the case usually is) from a place of fear.  When fear and doubt and worry get the better of me the lyrics to one of my favorite songs come to me (I confess, more often than not it’s song lyrics that get me through tough times): “I don’t believe you brought me this far to give up,/ so every day I keep on fighting for it./  Show me again what I was made for,/ help me to see how you’re leading me.”  And I believe I’m being led, okay, sometimes dragged, but I have no frickin’ clue where I’m going.

            Plus lately it seems like most days are fighting, and I know that lately I’ve been losing because life right now seems like more than I can handle.  I fight to get up.  I fight to sleep.  I fight to leave the house.  I fight to do the things I need to do, because the things I need to do take me further from the people I want to be with.  I fight to explain to people how I’m doing because I know they’re fighting too, and who can handle one more emotion.  There is so much change.  So much uncertainty.  So much that is nebulous.  And as someone who often finds themselves building things from scratch, who enjoys a good blank canvas, who has enough paint in her palette to quite possibly paint with all the colors of the wind, the fact that I can’t handle the total lack of direction is starting to really stress me out.

            But do I believe?  “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?  And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”

            So, do I believe?  Where is it that I won’t go?  What is it that I won’t do?

            So, do I believe?  Where is it that God won’t go?  What is it that God won’t do?

            So, do I believe?