Fear

Fear, the thing that keeps most of us from doing the thing that we truly love. Why do we fear? What causes us to truly be afraid? Are we afraid of the unknown? Are we afraid of risks? Are we afraid of failure? Are we afraid of what others think? These are the many questions popping up in my head right now, but I am learning that I am not alone in this. There are several friends who also have their own leaps of faith that need to be taken.

Joshua 10:25 NIV

Joshua said to them, "Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous. This is what the LORD will do to all the enemies you are going to fight."

1 Chronicles 28:20 NIV

David also said to Solomon his son, "Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the LORD is finished.

John 14:27 NIV

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Luke 8:25 NIV

"Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, "Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him."

2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

In looking through the Bible (using www.crosswalk.com) and looking up verses that contain the words fear or afraid, I was amazed at the number of verses talking about fear. Some talk about fear of others, some being afraid of something and many talking about the fear of the Lord. What I also found amazing, was that we are told over and over again to not be afraid and yet, it's a battle that I fight frequently. My fear is not crippling in the sense that I can't leave my home or interact w/ others, but it does often keep me from doing things the Lord has called me to do. This is a trait about myself that I honestly want to change. Sharing my dream out loud on FB and in a blog post caused a great deal of anxiety. Why? Because I am afraid of what people think? Yes. Because, I have no clue what this will all look like? Yes. Because I am afraid of failing? Yes. Fear keeps me from being who I should be in the Lord and prevents me from doing certain things b/c I am often to afraid to do them.

This past year has been interesting for me in my walk w/ the Lord. He has had me on a quest for authenticity as well as not being so fearful. Too many times we walk into church and put on what I like to call our "happy camper" faces. Things at home and work could be a total mess, but if asked our response is "I am so blessed." While we may truly be blessed there are days when we need to be able to share what is on our hearts and b/c of the fear of the reactions of others, we often keep things to ourselves. I do think that authenticity and fear go hand in hand. We are too afraid to be open and honest about what is on our hearts that people only see a portion of who we really are. We are too afraid to ask for people to pray for that things that hold us back from being all the Lord has called us to be and therefore sometimes struggle to move forward in life.

I'll be honest, I am so not where I thought I would be at this point in my life. I never thought that in my mid 30's that I would be essentially starting over where work was concerned. In talking w/ a friend today, I told her that I am completely terrified of what the future holds and yet, at the very same time, I feel like I actually have some control and power over what will happen, if that makes any sense at all. I have not been completely happy on the work front for a couple of years, not that I have not made many wonderful friends along the way, but I have felt like there is more that I could be doing. I still have not heard back from the one company about a second round interview. Yes, I still think if they called me back for a second interview and then offered me the position, I would struggle w/ the answer. It would be easy to say yes and keep doing what I have been doing for the past six and a half years, but I would also struggle w/ knowing that my dreams are once again being put on hold. So, do I go forward w/ what is easy if the opportunity is presented or do I take the giant leap of faith, that makes me totally 100% dependent on the Lord? Easy or hard? The strong Christian responds in faith and the weaker one, may respond w/ safe and dependable.

I can't find anywhere in Scripture where the Lord has called someone to do something and then left them to do everything on their own. Many times it doesn't look like they thought it would, but the Lord was there every step of the way. I find it funny, although I really shouldn't, that all of my devotional reading, scripture passages and even several sermons have been on taking leaps of faith and dealing w/ the Lord's call on my life. I know that He has a call on my life and now I am praying that I can move forward in faith and put fear behind me.

If you are in a similar position, I encourage you to dig into the Scripture and research passages on fear and see how the Lord speaks to you. Also, I would like you to feel free to send me messages via email, text or facebook and let me know how I can pray for you. The Lord didn't create us to walk through this world on our own. We are built for relationships and I think if we would truly be willing to walk w/ each other through the good and the bad, we would see a change in the church and I am pretty sure that relationships would be created and built that astonished even us.

All of this to say, and yes, it's a little scattered, that I pray that you and I would pray and work to overcome our battles w/ fear and watch the Lord does in and through us.

My dream a reflection of my heart

First of all I would like to start off by saying a big THANK YOU to those of you who have prayed for me, sent me messages of support and thankful for a wonderful conversation w/ an old friend last night.

Many of you have asked what it is that I would like to do, so I am going to share my heart. I have no idea how any of this will look or how the Lord will lead in all of this, but I am open and ready to take a leap of faith.

It will be three years ago this fall since the thoughts and dreams entered my heart and it all started w/ Facebook. The fall of 2010 appeared to be a pretty rough time for the marriages of many friends on FB. I saw where husbands decided that they no longer desired to be husbands and fathers and women were bad mouthing and belittling their husbands. I have also watched parents bad mouth their children. It is a trend that has continued and one that makes my stomach lurch and heart ache every time I see those types of status updates. Don't get me wrong, none of us are perfect, our spouses and children are not perfect and I think venting and reaching out for advice on FB can be a positive, but there is a fine line between venting and putting down someone that we love. As I watched all of this unfold online a desire to work w/ wives and mother's to work on conflict resolution w/ in the home and work on improving marriages and families built up inside of me.

We now live in a world of Pinterest and we see pictures of "perfect" meals and "perfect" homes along w/ a wide assortment of arts, crafts and do it yourself projects. While there are many ladies gifted in this area, many of us are not and looking at all of this and friends' status updates and pictures, mommy guilt can set in and cause us doubt that we are good mothers. The truth is that even if we are not gifted in this area it does not make us terrible wives and mothers. I would like to work w/ mothers and assist them in discovering their God given talents and abilities and then assisting them in making their homes what the Lord intended them to be and not what we think that society thinks our homes should be.

I post all of this knowing that 1) I have only been married for 8 years, 2) My oldest child is only 4 years old and 3) I am not the most dynamic speaker out there. Chonda Pierce and Beth Moore, I will never be.  Saying all of that I would love to participate in Women's Ministry Conferences, Women's Retreats, speak at Mother's groups and other groups as the Lord leads.

When the Lord lead me to SWBTS in the fall of 2003, my desire was to use counseling in a ministry setting and for the past six and a half years, I have been in a secular setting. Yes, I have learned a great deal about myself, was able to work on counseling skills, met many wonderful people and made some wonderful friends, but my heart has yearned for more. I would love to actually use Scripture and prayer into sessions and groups and let people meet The Counselor, who will do more for them than myself or any other person ever could.

As I type all of this I admit that I am scared to death of what this could be. I am scared of failing. Many of you who know me, know that I like safety, security and predictability. I like knowing that on set days of the month that X amount will be deposited into my checking account and knowing that our insurance is covered by the company and not coming 100% out of our pockets. Being married to one who is self-employed, I know that it can be feast or famine. At the same time I also acknowledge that the Lord has always provided and we have never gone w/out anything that we have needed. The thought of two of us being self-employed honestly scares me and this would be a huge leap of faith for me.

I also admit that I have NO clue as to how to even get started down this path. This is a dream that has really only been shared w/ a few people, so it's not something that people know about. I am praying that the Lord will use people reading this post and place people in my path to assist me in getting started on this journey.

Now that I have laid it all out there for others, I can only pray that the Lord would bless this dream and I pray that I will have the faith of a mustard seed to take this huge leap of faith. I also pray that if there are others of you have a dream that the Lord has placed in your heart, that you too will take the first step in verbalizing the dream and then take your leap of faith.

What do we have to lose?

For the past several days I have been reading "What Women Fear: Walking in Faith That Transforms" by Angie Smith. In the school where I work there is a list of 5 things on every board in all of the classrooms, #2 is Tell Someone and #3 is Don't Fake it. Yes, I promise the two are connected, in my mind at least.

Angie's book talks about the things that many women walk around w/ inside of their heads b/c they are too afraid of letting anyone in on their secrets. Many times this has to do with what we as women are afraid of losing. I see the questions on the board as asking the same thing. Are we afraid of what people will think? Are we afraid of losing respect from our spouse or our friends? Are we afraid of losing our leadership position at church? The sad answer to all of those questions is a resounding "Yes!"

My question is "Why?" Why is it that we feel the need to walk into church with our heads held so high? Why are we so afraid of letting people in? Isn't church supposed to be the hospital for the weak? Most of the time when we walk into our respective churches and someone asks "How are you?" our response is "Hallelujah, Praise the Lord, we are so Blessed." (Insert thick southern accent). The sad thing is that there are days when this couldn't be farther from the truth, but out of fear of not appearing to be anything but super spiritual, we won't answer w/ anything but that type of response.

Let me give you an example from my own life a little over a month ago:
It was a Wednesday. The week was already headed in a bad direction and that day at work, anything that could go wrong did go wrong. I was late leaving school and when I came home all 3 kids were in meltdown mode. My husband and I had an argument over something, don't remember now, and money was tight and we had a huge bill to pay and not sure how we were going to pay it. Granted, Jan and Feb in our house is always tight just due to the nature of my husband's business. Anyway, he and I had an argument and then he had to leave for a random Wed night gig. At this point, I wanted to put all 3 kids in bed, grab a pint of Ben and Jerry's Fish Food, crawl into my own bed and watch Food Network until I fell asleep and then try again in the morning. Instead, I loaded the kids in the van, ran through the drive through at CFA, b/c we all know that CFA makes us smile and then headed on to church. There were no open spots in the fellowship hall so I set the kids up picnic style in the lobby area outside of the sanctuary. They were happily munching on their nuggets when a man walked up and asked me 1) If all of the kids were mine 2) Do they have the same father and 3) If I had any idea as to what causes this? Thankfully, I allowed the Lord to bite my tongue until he walked away. At this point, I wanted to sit there on the floor and cry, but I didn't. I cleaned up the kids and dropped them off at their classrooms and headed on up to dance and then on to choir. When people asked how I was or how things were going, I responded with "good, we're good."

Reality was that was bold face lie in church. What was I so afraid of? In honesty, part of it that we have only been at this church since August and I was not going to unload on a person that I didn't know that well and I also knew that if the tears started, they wouldn't have stopped. There are two women that I have come to have a great deal of respect for in the short time we have been there and I am pretty confident that I could have talked w/ either one of them that night and they would have listened and then prayed for me. The one would have cracked a joke and made me laugh. The point is, I was afraid of having anything on, but my "happy camper face."

I am not saying that we all have these days everyday or even every week, but why are we so afraid of letting people in? Now, don't hear me saying that we should walk around church like Eeyore, and complain about the cars cutting us off in traffic, hitting every red light to and from work, the cashier/ waiter/ waitress who had more attitude than needed, but there are times when we need to let others in and talk about what is going on inside of our heads.

My next question is do you have one or more people that you know well enough and are comfortable enough to get real w/ when it's needed? Having one or two very good, close friends is important. The Lord didn't create us to be alone. We were created for fellowship. Created for fellowship w/ Him and w/ others. I think there are times when in prayer we lie to the Lord. He's not dumb and He already knows what we are thinking and feeling, so we might as well fess up to Him if we won't to anyone else. There are times when we need to share our fears, doubts, envy, negative self-talk, etc... to others b/c to verbalize it and have someone to process it w/ is healthy. It may be that what you are struggling w/ needs more than a good heart to heart w/ a friend. It may be that you need to talk to someone more qualified. You may need the support of a good friend to take that first step and be w/ you when you make the call. Not everyone needs a counselor, but there are times when that may be what is needed.

All of this to lead to the ultimate question of "What do we have to lose?" If sharing your fears, doubt, envy, negative self-talk ends up costing you a friendship/ relationship, then that friendship/ relationship was not great from the start. In reality, we could end up costing ourselves an incredible walk w/ the Lord and in the end, that is the most important. I think, many times, we are our own biggest barrier to our relationships w/ Christ b/c the outward appearance of having it all together is more important that truly having it together in the eyes of the Lord. The great thing is that He is more than willing to meet us where we are. There is nothing that we can bring to Him that He can't handle. We serve a mighty and loving God, One who wants us to bring everything to Him.

When we come to a point where you know you need to share, but are afraid, here are a few verses on fear that I am learning and are becoming important to me on my own journey.

"The LORD is my light and salvation; whom then shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; whom shall I be afraid?" Psalm 27:1

"The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" Psalm 118:6

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you." Deuteronomy 31:6

"Anxiety in a man's heart weighs it down, but a good word cheers it up." Proverbs 12:25

There are so many more verses on fear, but these are some that have jumped out at me personally.

As I close out this post, what are the fears or other thoughts that you have wanted to verbalize for so long, but are too afraid to share? Are you ready to stop carrying them around w/ you and move forward in your life and in your walk w/ Christ? I don't claim to have all of the answers and still struggle w/ these things myself, but I am ready to stop pretending. How wonderful would it be if we could walk into church tonight or Sunday and get real w/ each other and walk w/ each other and truly pray for and w/ each other? How different would our churches look? How much larger would our impact for Christ be?

Introduction

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is this person? Is she real at all?

The Lord has me on a journey. It's one that has me scared and excited all at the same time. Who am I really? What kind of wife am I? What kind of mother am I? What kind of friend am I? What kind of therapist am I? Who is this person staring back at me in the mirror and who do others think me to be?

For a while now, I have been unsettled in who I am. For so long, I have put on so many faces and played so many characters that I have lost who I am in Christ. He has called me to be a wife, a mother, a friend and a therapist, but at the core, I have lost sight of me and have hidden several parts of me that I would rather not face.

I find it amazing that the Lord will continue to place you in situations where you have to deal with certain issues. It seems in the past year, every time I turn around, there are three issues I have been confronted with in sermons, conferences and my own person quiet times and they are authenticity, fear and faith. The truth is, I like to appear strong. I fear more than I should and I often lack faith and don't believe the Lord will do what He says He will do, even though He has proven Himself time and time again. Not sure where this journey will lead, but I know that it's one that I must walk, if I have any desire to answer any of the above questions and move forward on my journey with the Lord.

I can promise you that I will do my best to be real. I also promise you that I am not a great writer, but what you read will be who I am and more importantly, I pray that it reflects WHOSE I am.