Fear-less Living

I have been bombarded recently with the stark reality of people's fears coming to pass. I have a friend dying of brain cancer. I have another friend who is nearing retirement who just found out they have been swindled out of their entire life savings. Three blogs that I've read this week have told the tragic story of losing children... one to SIDS, one to an accidental drowning, and another a baby dying just before being born.

My heart absolutely breaks over these losses. I have walked in the valley of grief where the questions float about like snowflakes and the ground seems to tilt and shift making you tumble about. I can remember not quite knowing what was up and what was down.

I can remember being angry at others carrying on with normal activities. I never thought normal would be a description for my life, my thoughts, my actions, or my routines ever again. I hated normal and yet I craved it all at the same time. Memories of my sister- my beautiful, beautiful sister taken so young, would flood my brain one minute and elude me the next. As much as the memories comforted me they were also a stabbing reminder of my loss- our loss- our great, great loss.

Some people say that when your loved ones are taken from you, you will wish for one more minute or one more day. I was more selfish than that. I wished for one more lifetime where tragedy and disease were banished and where my little princess of a sister could dance through our lives for so much longer.

And wrapped in these starks realities we all hear about, is fear.

To live with a constant dread of fear is not really living at all. It places your heart in a place of grief before it is time. Fear wraps a vibrant life in a black cloak of dread and steals life's joy.

We should be a realistic people but not a fearful people. Reality is that we've all been assigned a certain number of days to live. Reality is realizing that each day is a gift that should be fully embraced and appreciated. Reality is that God's vision of our life is not limited by time. Right this minute God can stand in the day we were created and He can stand in the day that will be our last. He is with us yesterday, today, and He already stands in tomorrow.

And in each minute to come God calls out for us to remember and to trust and to believe: "Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my victorious right hand (Isaiah 41:10.)"

Those aren't hollow words of a nice quote. There is fear defeating power and security and comfort and connection with God Himself in those words. God Himself comes to us personally when we are afraid. Even when we can't process what life throws at us, He is still a trustworthy God. He is not dismayed by what happens.

He loves us so much that in His wisdom He has allowed what his power could have prevented.

I didn't come up with that line.

Our sweet bloggy friend Sumi did. Her husband said it and then she repeated it, “We still believe that somehow he allowed something in His wisdom that he could have prevented in his power.”

And the fact that Sumi can say this, write this, believe this and be comforted by this after having just laid her precious 3 year old daughter into the arms of Jesus, makes me know that every part of this passage in Isaiah, including the last few words, is absolutely true: "He will strengthen you and help you. God Himself will uphold you in His victorious right hand."

And so for today, I seek to crowd out fears from my mind with the life giving, security restoring words of both my Lord and my friend who has faced her greatest fear and still believes.

Sumi, our prayers, our tears, our thoughts and our love are with you.

May each of us embrace today not with fear but with great thanksgiving of what is right in front of us, right now.