Face Your Fears
Face Your Fears
When you are in the process of facing your fears, you will be faced with some fearful moments. Moments that will make you
question what you are doing and what God is doing. Moments that will make you want
to give up and walk away. Those are the moments that we must know who God is in
our lives. He is the Good Shepherd and He is looking out for us. If we can just
surrender it all to Him and let him take control…. We honestly do not have
anything to fear.
One morning I was hanging out at the gym and Jenny asked me
if I wanted to go with her on her morning run at the Wetlands. I had never been
to the Wetlands and thought a change of scenery would be nice. I love nature
walks, however, as soon as we get out there this anxiety comes over me. I have
no idea what it is or why. From what I gathered it was a huge body of water
surrounded by trees and the walking trails were through the water. So, as you
are walking the water is right there on both sides of the trail, in which in
most places you can’t see the water because it is covered in greenery and
marsh. So there is not anything between where you are standing and
whatever is in the water. I just thought I would point that out. As we are
walking along, we are talking, and I am trying to stay focused on the beauty of
the place. Jenny says she is going to run up ahead of me and tells me where to
go so that she can run back to where I am. The anxiety grows even more as she
runs up ahead and disappears. I am walking along and might I add that I had an
injured knee at the time and I am walking with a limp and I already can’t walk
very fast so if something did come out of the water to get me … I’m dead! So,
there I am trying to stay focused on the beauty of the place and I even stop
and take a few pictures, when I hear a BIG swoosh in the water. Whatever made that
swoosh was big enough to eat me!! I started to panic, and my heart started to
race. Then I heard it again. I picked up the pace as best as I could, but with
the injured knee I wasn’t doing much. I called Jenny and made it sound like I
just wanted to make sure I was on the right path, in which I did pass a turn
that was a little questionable. She asked if I was ok and I told her what I
heard and that I was trying not to freak out. She played it off like oh it was
probably just a deer. I told myself that I was never going out there again.
Well, a few weeks later Jenny asked me to lead the group
“Purpose Driven Run”. This group has been meeting at the Wetlands on Saturday
mornings. She told me that I would just lead the prayer and share a word with
the group and then wait for them to get done with their run. I thought it would
be fine if I didn’t have to go out on the trails. So, that Saturday morning
only one lady showed up. I didn’t want her to walk alone so I was going to suck
it up and walk with her. We were engaged in a great conversation anyways and I
figured that would keep my mind off what was in the water. We are taking a
different route than the last time I was out there, and we come to a bridge.
This bridge is sitting directly on top of the water and just looking at it gave
me anxiety. However, the bridge was a little flooded over, so we took another
route. We are walking along and sharing our stories. Toward the end of our walk, we come to another bridge. By this time, I had already told her about my experience
from the last time I was out there with Jenny and she knew about my anxiety.
So, she said we can either take a shortcut and cross this bridge or we can go
the long way around. I immediately said let’s go the long way around. I took a
few steps away from the bridge and God stopped me and said, “face your fears.”
I took a deep breath and said, “you know what I am going to be brave and face
my fears, let's cross the bridge.”
As I am crossing this bridge, there is this amazing peace
and knowing that God is with me. No matter where I go, or what I must face I
have nothing to fear because God is with me, always!!! After the whole Wetlands
experience, I began to pray and ask God what that was all about. Why did I have
so much anxiety out there? The revelation I got was a fear of open spaces. It ties into the
loss of my mother, which is another story for another day. For years, I have
been living with a strong spirit of fear. It never revealed itself as fear, it
was coming out as anger and selfishness. It was the culprit behind a lot of
decisions that I made in the past. God brought me to this point in my life so
that He could deliver me from it. It had to be Him, His way, and His timing. I
spent countless hours in therapy and could spend countless more and not get the
results that I got with God.
It was 26 days of living in my car, even though I was
terrified in the beginning I would not take it back. Those were days that I
spent with God, it was just me and Him. It was life-changing!
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