I would like to sit here and think that today begins a new journey but in reality it’s not new. Life is the journey. Yes at times we come to a fork in the road and we need to decide which path to take. It is the very reason why I chose the theme for my blog to be walking by faith. Journey is in the subheading. and as I alluded to in yesterday’sblog post that there were somethings up my sleeve. I have been thinking and praying and planning for the last few months and I have really needed to wrestle through some stuff. Things like :
Fear
Control
Lack of confidence ( this one strikes me as funny because that was my word for last year. ,
Once upon a time….Journey back in time
I struggled with intense fear. Fear that left me curled up in the corner of my bedroom sobbing. I had come home to no power and I feared what lurked in the darkness. The unseen, You know what was there? Furniture Thats it. . I was as quiet as a mouse all of the time. When we moved into a different apartment a year and a half later I was pregnant with our first son and I quickly learned that the guy downstairs was on the creepy list. When our oldest was born hubby and I praised God that he was too young to ask questions about what was going on downstairs, on many levels. I was still scared but now I could no longer be as quiet as a mouse, because I had this youngling…and what do younglings do? They Cry. Sometimes a lot. But in my heart my thought was what if that creepy guy comes up stairs……? Then one day! He did. I was standing at the sink tasing dishes and this insane pounding came . I froze. He yelled Get out, the Apartment is on fire. Wait what? IS this for real? Sure enough I picked up our newborn son and scrambled down the stairs. It was filled with smoke, firetrucks everywhere.
Fast forward….the journey between then and Now
As I look back over the nearly 13 years since that day. I see an on again off again relationship with fear. What was once an absolutely gripping fear of being alone…as in no one in the same house. I could be alone, actually I really liked being in solitude, just not in the sense of being left alone….and in the ONLY ONE, morphed into a different kind of fear. Fear of people. Nope not kidding one single bit. I was afraid that I was going to get hurt. There was a time on my life as a young mom where I was convinced that it was my job to be hurt…by people. It was during that time that I had no friends. I was home all the time alone and arrows flew at me from every direction.. Now This did not just happen once or twice. there is a lesson in this for me. I knew there was but I was DENSE (still am). So I had to keep learning it over and over and over again.
Right now….on the journey
A few weeks ago I came face to face with a girl I had met several other times in my life. She and I were acquaintances. I knew of her. I had read her story over and over, and yet it was just tha,t a story. History if you will. A few weeks ago I came face to face with this same fear. Fear of people. See I am not afraid of people on a larger scale. Back in October I was getting up in front of a huge group of women introducing Brooke McGlothlin and Stacey Thacker. A tad nervous yes BUT not fearful or scared. But God has been doing something bigger in my heart. And it centered around a fear. A fear about speaking in public, something I have never minded doing before. I lead Bible study, I have taught Sunday school for the ladies But there have been some instances that have created this fear. Those aren’t important. But what is important is that I came face to face with my problem. My problem is this: I cannot control what people do or say or how they react, so therefore I am afraid, and at times I let my fear lead me into disobedience. This last week I stood face to face with this young woman who said to her cousin “nut everyone in every province knows that if you go into the king uninvited- you will die. Her cousin responds with this. “if you don’t do this, someone else will rise to the occasion and you and your fathers family will die. The young girl responded with I will do it and if I die I die”.(Paraphrase according to Mary) Do you know the young girl? Her Name is Esther. There is a whole book in the Old Testament of the Bible written about her.
Jewish Girl turned Persian Queen
Now I know I know you are all thinking but I’m nothing like Esther. She was a Queen But she did no start out that way. Just as I didn’t start our a Pasor’s wife. Like Esther I had to say yes to a whole lot of things. And if your no my story at all you know I started out saying no to that role. Why? Because I was afraid, afraid of people and how they would treat me.
When I finally said yes to God about speaking a few weeks ago, I still had doubts running through my head. Questions, concerns, and fears. I was living in the “What if” zone. And then chapter 4 of Esther hit me in the face. I was standing face to face with the same fear she had. She didn’t want to make the king mad. She didn’t want to die. Now I am not going to die, but there are moments when you put yourself out there that make you want to curl up and die- as in crawl under a rock, never to be seen again. Now my Fathers house isn’t going to die either if I had chosen to say No to God,, but if I don’t Step up somebody else will. and so me and my girl Esther are going into this holding hands. I wish I could pronounce if I die, I die as boldly as she did, but I am going to set my eyes on other things rather than fearing the unknown. Unlike that newlywed me fearing the darkness and what lurked in it, I am choosing to trust the one who knows all, including what lurks in the unknown. and if I flop I flop. But I will have been obedient in the process! I don’t need to control-God’s got it. I don’t need to fea-God’s in control. When I have those two things playing over and over in my head, I don’t need self confidence, I have God-fidence, I have nothing to fear because he is in control. I have everything to fear if I am in control.
On a side note, as I have chosen obedience in this I have realized that after some long silences the words are beginning to flow again. I am excited and terrified and beyond thankful all wrapped into one! Thanks for remaining to be faithful followers/ readers all along through the thick and thin. Thanks so much for joining me on my journey.
Blessings
Mary
