Tag Archives: Fear

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Time to Hope Again

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The seasons of our lives are ever changing.  Some of them come and go on a rather consistent schedule, ready to usher us into the next stage. But then there are other times, times when we’ve been stuck for so long in the same spot, times when winter seems to be the only season we’ve ever known and we begin to lose hope of ever seeing green ground again.

plaine dans les vosges

In expectation of what was coming, we did our best to prepare for it. We dressed ourselves in winter parkas, donned our fur lined boots, pulled tight the drawstring of our hoods under our chins, and slipped into our wool mittens.  We settled in for a long, cold winter and lost all hope of spring.

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It’s Who I Am

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You are loved

Staring down at the cold hard granite, I slipped some sugar into my tea and began stirring. The tea was just a distraction. Something to take my mind off the fact that I had no idea what we were going to have for dinner that night. It’s 5:00 already!?!

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The Road Ahead

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Road Ahead

The other day I was enjoying a long bike ride. I headed out not really sure where I was headed.  I just knew I had to get out of town and into some woods where I could breathe some fresh air. Where my thoughts could get lost in the song of a bird sweetly chirping. It was as if my soul was calling out to me to connect to something bigger. Something pure.

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True daughters of Sarah

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fear and anxiety

Unanxious and unintimidated.

These two words don’t necessarily describe me. I’d like them to. I’m working on it. I’m just not quite there yet.

I’ve spent far too much time feeling anxious. I hate even admitting that, but it’s the truth. My heart starts racing, sometimes my palms get a little sweaty. Thoughts start swirling around in my head and at times I begin to actually feel physically sick. A knot begins to form in my stomach. The skin around my neck and shoulder area gets all red and blotchy. Ugh. Just writing about it is making me feel anxious!

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No Spirit of Fear Here

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

fearI remind myself of this a lot.  Over the years I have dealt with many different faces of fear. It’s been about 4 years now since we had someone break into our home. It was in the middle of the night and my entire family was there, sleeping.  The intruders left behind an axe that they had brought with them which was unsettling. But that wasn’t the only thing they left behind that day. They also left behind a heart gripped by fear.

It was almost 3 months later before I would sleep through the night again. Fear had found a place in my heart and mind.  It was slowly eating away at me. Like I said, I am familiar with fear. It’s something that has kind of followed me my whole life, taking on different faces at different stages of my life.  But this was new territory for me because suddenly a fear of mine had become a reality. And I wasn’t sure how to deal with it.

I would find myself bolting up in bed in the middle of the night, confident that someone was breaking into our house. There were times that I would go and check on my kids to make sure they were safe and times when I was literally so crippled by fear that I couldn’t even move. Sometimes I would wake up my husband and he would do a “check” around the house to set my mind at ease. Often we would pray together. But always I would find myself repeating scripture over and over again to help settle my mind. At times all I could remember was a single verse and so I would repeat it over and over again until the truth of it settled on my heart.