Freezing in Fear
I think fear is the number one
hardest thing about this life. There are many hardships that come and sorrows
and pain but the fear that precedes, accompanies, and then follows them are the
hardest and most trying parts. I hesitate to write about this because I am not
an expert on how to live a life void of fear – in fact quite the opposite – I
am the expert on fear – a big fatty ol’ chicken. I was a chicken as a child,
had fear take a short respite during those adventurous teenage and young adult
years, and then I returned to my chicken-ness when I joined the world of
mothers. The vast number of examples throughout my life that would prove my
chickenhood could fill volumes so I’ll spare you the massive amount of cringing
at my expense and only share one specific experience. The following example, I
am ashamed to admit, happened only this past year.
Picture me frozen with fear,
dangling by a small rope, looking down at the ground that seemed endlessly far
away. I kept losing my footing. I wanted to stop, but going down was going to
be as awful as it would be to just continue. I was petrified. I started sobbing
(just as a side note, that doesn’t help you gain your footing). While sobbing, I
starting yelling totally irrational things like, “Why did I do this? I can’t
die! Who will raise my kids? My husband will not do a good job by himself!”
More irrational thoughts flooded my mind and thankfully I didn’t let all of them
spew out as well (like “Now I just know that after I die my husband will lose
his mind and marry a dumb girl that is just going to be a dump of a mother and
she’ll ruin my kids’ lives & it will be all because I decided to do this
stupid climb!!!”). The list of irrationalities that bombarded my mind could go
on. I was shaking and so very afraid.
Now realize that I wasn’t doing any
of that crazy climbing that people do without a rope…okay so I wasn’t even
climbing a mountain…okay so I was doing a challenge course at girl’s camp and
it started with one of those rope-web-things like they have at the kids
playgrounds. Now before you judge me too harshly, or laugh too much at my
expense – it does go up a little further than the playground ones – 40 feet
high or something like that. And yes, I was harnessed, wearing a helmet, &
had a belay person, or whatever they are called. I yelled irrational things at
that poor lady too like “ I weigh twice as much as you!” (She was teeny!) And, “There
is no way that if I fall that your little body is going to keep me from death
or severe maiming!” Oh and for those of you that think I am exaggerating, ask
anyone who was there – it is quite a moment of shame and embarrassment for me.
(That I am now publishing on the Internet – smooth move). And miracle of
miracles, I did eventually make it up the rest of the web, across the stupid
little boards in the air and all the way down the repelling cable to the
bottom. And so that don’t keep you
in suspense too long -- I lived…barely. But at no point was it pretty. I share
this for several reasons. First, I want to make it very obvious that I really
am not an expert on how to handle fear. Second, I do however have some
expertise in experiencing fear. And finally, I have found there are things that
help me to lessen my fear.
Back
home, away from that horrid girl’s camp challenge course, I have other fears
besides a ridiculous fear of heights and a fear of death leading to delinquent
children. I have fears that as a youth I could have never imagined because
almost all of my fears now revolve around my children. All the fears that I had
in my childhood came screaming back into my life when I gave birth and learned
to love more deeply and care more strongly than I ever had before. I want to
add that I cared and still care very deeply for my husband as well and have fears
related to his well-being and would never want to lose him but for me the scary
freeze-you-stiff fears didn’t return until I gave birth to that first little
beautiful boy.
Since
that day, the fears have seemed daunting. I think I knew that my husband could
go on with out me, but here was a little person, with a wonderful spirit,
straight from Heavenly Father, who was dependant on me to take care of him
physically and spiritually. I could no longer die and feel that the world would
not drastically alter – my death would affect him very profoundly. So now the
fear of everything that could harm my safety was back. I was afraid of death,
not because I feared there was no afterlife but because I feared for my baby
boy’s life after my death.
And
then there was the thought of losing this little guy. I thought of those that I
knew then and I think of those that I have known since who have lost children
and my heart just aches so terribly for them. I don’t want to know what that’s
like. I have a terribly good imagination and that’s as far as I ever want to
venture into the world of knowing what it is like to lose a child. I am in awe
of the strength that I have seen from those that have suffered that loss. And I
fear because I wonder if I could be so strong.
Adding
kids didn’t help this fear of dying or losing children. I added two more boys
and one little girl. And it’s hard to not spend my days worrying about
everything from childhood cancer, to kidnapping, to molestation, to
earthquakes, to bullying, to car accidents and choking hazards. It’s easy to
add to the list of things to fear, all you have to do is watch the news. And
the tragedy at Sandy Hook added a whole new fear I hadn’t even thought of
before – I now had reason to fear every time my kids left on the bus. My kids
are safe nowhere.
And
although I feel justified and realistic when I think that, I’m wrong when those
are my thoughts, because my children are in God’s hands wherever they go.
How does a chicken like me wake up
and face the world everyday? Why do I keep having kids when I fear so much for
their lives? How do I send my children off to, gasp, public school!? Ultimately
with the filth and sewage that covers this world growing new fears for all of
us every day, why do I even bother to wake up at all?
The answer is really simple. The
antithesis of fear really is faith. When I’m having an overwhelming problem
with fear, the truth is that I am having an underwhelming problem with faith or
rather an overwhelming problem with a lack of faith. Faith brings with it hope.
Hope and faith will chase away all fear. It really is true that fear and faith
cannot exist in the same person at the same time. (An idea expressed somewhat by both Joseph Smith Jr. in Lectures on Faith and President Thomas S. Monson in a 2000 talk "The Call to Serve" although they both refer to "doubt and faith" but to me fear and doubt walk the same path).
I
cannot offer any meaningful advice on how to rid your life of debilitating fear
if you have no faith. I do not think it is possible. If the only things to
comfort you when you worry about your children, your spouse, or your friends
& family is the thought that statistically you can assure yourself that
there’s a high probability that most of your loved ones won’t be defiled,
maimed, killed, or stolen – then that is not a sure-fire way to rid life of
fear. There will be no cure when the statistics change or don’t work in your
favor or science fails to offer an explanation, a comfort, or solution. To
those to whom this may apply I can only implore you to find faith or your life
will always be full of fear.
But
to those of us that have faith but find it lacking in moments that seem so
scary, I have found that there are so many ways to strengthen that faith,
lessen the fear to work toward eventually having unshakeable, sustainable,
faith where there is absolutely no room for fear.
I
realize that I cannot go into extensive detail in everything that will dispel
fear so I will just mention the two best places to go to head-off fear: the
scriptures and the Lord. I
have not done an exhaustive search of every verse in the scriptures that says,
“fear not,” but even in my meager searches I have found the words “fear not” so
often as to surprise and relieve me. The Lord repeatedly tells his people to
“fear not.” In Genesis the Lord appears to Isaac and tells him, “fear not I am
with thee…” The angel that appears to Mary says, “Fear not.” The angel that
appears to the shepherds at the birth of Christ says, “Fear not…” In Rev. 1:17
it says, “Fear not, I am the first and the last.” And this is just a small
sprinkling of the many “fear not”s that the Lord himself or through his
messengers has said. I found many more that I have not sited here and I am
quite sure that many, many, more exist on top of the ones I have discovered.
All these verses remind me of the hymn, “How Firm a Foundation” that draws part
of its lyrics from Isaiah 41:10. The hymn says, “Fear not, I am with thee; oh
be not dismayed, For I am thy God and will still give thee aid. I’ll strengthen
thee, help thee and cause thee to stand, Upheld by my righteous…omnipotent
hand.” Reading or hearing “fear
not” feels more like a command than a suggestion. If the Lord had said, “I
don’t think you should fear,” then that might be a suggestion, but it is very
direct and as with all commandments that he gives us, the Lord gives us even
greater promises. He says that he will give us aid and in both the scripture
verse and the song he says that he will strengthen and uphold us. God doesn’t
say, “Fear not, and sorry this world is ridiculously awful and scary and filled
with worse monsters than you ever had nightmares of as a kid, so good luck with
that command.” No! He promises to strengthen us and hold our hands through it
all. In the hymn he says that he will “cause us to stand.” There are things
that happen that are so awful that nothing save the compelling, pulling hand of
the Lord, could ever give us the strength or the lift to stand again.
I
think of Peter, in Matt. 14:29-30 when he walked on the water out to the Savior
and the faith that that must have taken and then it says that “when he saw the
wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord,
save me.” This is all of us at one time or another; all of us who start out
with faith, who want to believe who have the seed of faith, and then when the
world’s winds get boisterous and scary thoughts consume our minds, we start to
sink. But that is not the truly beautiful part of the story. In verse 31, it
says, “And immediately, Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him…”
I
love that is says “immediately” because when we call on the Savior, with faith,
believing that he can save, he immediately offers his hand and helps us to
stand.
He
really means it when he says, “I’ll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee
to stand, upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.”
To
go back to my humiliatingly awful, fearfully debilitating experience this last
summer on that challenge course, I would be remiss to not state that these are
the kinds of things that they were trying to teach me and remind me of through
a very yucky object lesson. The lady (the teeny one) that was my belayer was
talking about how the Savior is the one at the other end who keeps us anchored
and safe no matter what the circumstances. And they talked about the helmet and
the harness and how they were protective armor like the armor of God that we
need to keep us safe from the sins of this world and the fiery darts of the
adversary. And at the end (yes, remember I actually made it to the end) when
all I needed to do was lean forward to head down the zipline (a task that took
way longer than it should have and was admittedly horrifying) they reminded me
that in life, there are so many times that we have to rely on others and on the
Lord and take a leap of faith.
All of those principles are
incredibly true, albeit irritating and aggravating to hear at the time. I look
back now and can appreciate the things that I was taught that day and
appreciate the fact that I survived and never feel like I have to do that EVER
again.
I
think that it is how our life plays out in a lot of ways – especially the part
where truth sometimes in the moment of fear, feels aggravating and irritating;
that being irrational seems rational and that yelling crazy things at people
seems normal. But deep down if our testimonies are rooted in sincere faith and
if we turn to the scriptures and to the Lord when we have fear, then he will
uphold us, give us strength and we will conquer that fear…or at least survive
the course to face a new fear, maybe with a little more faith on another day.
-Okay so now you see why it was so ridiculous that this was my post and yet I've held back posting it because of fear. One thing the I didn't touch on in this post but I'm sure will revisit in another post is the fear of men or the fear of what other's think. I thought that it would surely lessen the older that I got but instead I find that it has merely morphed, taking different shapes and attacking in new areas. I try really hard to ignore it and to live a life not caring what others think but it still is a bigger struggle for me than I would like to admit.
Also when it comes to this blog I feel that my posts will not be consistent or regular but rather may come in spurts followed by intense famine. I don't know really why I am writing this (I still have to figure out how in the world to make it look cool) other than when I have been praying to the Lord to strengthen my testimony, this was one of the things that he wanted me to do.
I'm not going to have all of my posts be just experiences and although I have many hilarious "mom moments" I don't think that most of them will be on here. This blog really is about faith and I want to share the things that I discover on my journey with faith, with others.
I love history, more specifically I love LDS church history. I am enamored at the moment by the Joseph Smith Papers and I can't get enough of all of the testimony-building, amazing things I learn all the time by studying the past and specifically the past of my ancestors and the early saints of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know that not everyone, even the most amazingly awesome members of the LDS will share that same passion and so part of what I would love to do is share in my relatively short way some of the things that I study and learn. I hope that they are a benefit to someone. And here's to bucking some of my fears out the door and posting this on the internet. (I'm cringing as I push the "publish" button…)
