faith over fear

It has been a challenging season of ups and downs in our family.  It really has.  And some days I do not handle it well AT ALL and other days I manage to do better.  But there are two things that have helped me chug along a tad more gracefully than I would have otherwise and I want to share them with you.

First, I am consciously trying to choose faith instead of fear every single day.  See, I have lived a lot of my life in fear.  Not every single day kind of fear.  I am a confident and outgoing person and generally I am very happy and secure.  But I have been afraid of dying, afraid at night when Dave has had to travel, afraid of flying, afraid of losing my kids to illness or violence and even afraid of change.  Sometimes the fears have guided me in life in ways I wish they have not.

Recently a blog reader e-mailed me this Bible passage...

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

1 John 4:18

She also e-mailed me some encouragement and explanation of the verse.  I pray everyday for God to give me a spirit of FAITH and not one of FEAR and I know it is working.  Slowly, my fears are being replaced with my faith in God. I have been a faithful person my whole life. I grew up in religious school and church and I have always believed. I always thought I had great faith but that was probably just my pride.  Real faith takes a lot more work and I am doing the work.  I am trying to grow my mustard seed day by day.

One example of how I can see this working in my everyday life is driving.  I was hit 3 times in a 2 year period in my car.  None of these accidents were my fault.  Twice I was rear ended while stuck completely still in traffic. And once Kate and I were t-boned as someone ran a stop sign.  I was hurt a little each time and I was shaken up badly each time.  My car had lots of damage.

 I developed a fear of driving.  I drive everyday but I would literally flinch every time a car was at a perpendicular stop sign. I was terrified they would not stop.  It was not conscious of this at all.  I never thought about it but my whole body would just flinch. Similarly, I flinch on the freeway every time I see brake lights as my body recalls being rear ended.

In the last few months as I pray for faith over fear, I notice my body is not flinching.  It is like my mind and soul have told my body that "God has this."  I am still not 100% comfortable in the car but it is getting SO much better.

So the second thing that has helped me is helping others.  As things have gotten hard here, I am trying to help others more.  I currently have a new friend waiting for a heart transplant that I want to help.  I also have a long time friend battling an aggressive cancer and another friend who was just admitted to the hospital yesterday.  Gathering friends to pray the rosary, driving a friend to appointments, trying to get meals for them, or just listening, etc. has made me realize that my problems aren't that bad.  Helping others is helping me take the focus off myself and that is always a good thing, no?

So, if you are in a difficult season, try to remind yourself to choose faith over fear.  And reach out to someone else who might need your help.  It makes all the difference in the world.  And this is God's greatest commandment for us.


A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. 

John 13: 34-35


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