Fear

As long as I can remember fear has been my biggest weakness.  No not like most people at least that I have ever known of.  I mean terrified of things happening.  This is something over the years that I have prayed for and there are times where I don't think much of the fears of life but then there are times when I am just plain struggling.  Now I look at CNN for the news, world news and the happenings.  This is not what worries me it is if something were to happen to my family.

Now I know everyone has the basic fear of life but my mind is something I struggle with controlling.  I take the smallest of fears and from 0 to 60 I have already played the whole situation out in my head.  How I would react, how I cope, the what I would do next.  If I hear a terrible story I relate it to my world and take it on as my own.  This struggle has gotten larger for me and one that I struggle with weekly if not daily.

In June a friend from college, Kristin, her son died suddenly.  I found out right after that there was no accident and I heard some of the details.  This week she shared the news with friends that her son was not killed by accident but by the hand of his step mother.  For the last month this situation has been just an overwhelming presence in my life.  I don't just hurt for her, I hurt.  I look at Gracie and want to weep.  I think this is a women who had her own children.  Someone that was trusted at least by her husband.  My mind jumps threw details of this women and of little Ethan.  What he must have been thinking and how he was feeling.  My heart aches for him, how he was not protected.

I know in my heart the Lord loved this little boy, but i struggle with the not understanding.  This in turn makes me so fearful for Gracie, how I can't always be there to protect her and that just eats me up.  Troy reminds me of how important it is to pray but don't you think Kristin prayed for him, I know she prayed for him.  In the end God took him to a better place.  I know God is in control of all things but I have struggled with, why pray if at the end in this situation it did not matter, not to Ethan.  I know in my heart that what I need to do is pray and I have not stopped but I struggle.  I am constantly praying over the control of my mind, controlling my thoughts when they run away from me.  I am not stupid I have seen the power of prayers many times in my own life and for others around me.  I have been blessed through prayer but right now I struggle with the fighting of my heart and mind.

So, I have been praying over my mind.  Praying for this thing called fear that has been so evident in the last month and a half.

Isaiah 41:13 
For I am the LORD your God, who upholds your right hand,
Who says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you.


2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.