Only in the last year have I begun to see how much my fears have gripped me, and how much of my head space had been devoted to the things I fear. It's been an array of things from fear of disappointing people, fear of not having enough money to live, to genuinely fearing the end of the world. Plus a whole lot in between.
There's certainly a healthy amount of fear and worry that are appropriate in one's life, because at times those emotions can be good indicators of what we need to be freed from, but all too often we sit and dwell in the fear and worry camp, rather than get to the root of those anxieties. The root in my life at least, has always been a need for control.
Last year I was asked, "What would you think about if you weren't worrying or in fear all the time?" At that point, I couldn't even answer the question because I was so deep in my fears and worries. I truthfully had no idea what I would fill my mind with if it wasn't with the things I was afraid of and worried about. That question stirred in me for awhile. I tried to picture what it could possibly be like to have no fear or worry constantly consuming me. During that time, my answer still remained that I didn't know.
I think subconsciously I knew that I was not going to get out of this nasty habit and cycle on my own. I think I even knew that my habit of fearing and worrying wasn't going to be something I was weened from; it was something that I needed ripped from me, and taken away. I needed to quit this worry and fear drug, cold turkey.
That day came April 22, 2011. I remember it vividly. I could write for days about what I experienced that Friday morning. I won't though, for your sake. What I will say is that as I was laying in bed that morning, the words, "Just live," kept ringing in my ear. "Just live." A lot collided for me in that moment, and I was overwhelmed with two things. First, the realization that my fears and worries were robbing me of living in the present and seeing the beauty in my days, and had been for some time. And second, I realized that I had never experienced what true freedom from something felt like. Since that day, miraculously, and by grace that can only come from above, I have been free from the consumption of fear and worry. Do I still worry and fear things? Yes. I do have kids, a husband, bills to pays, and demands to my life, after all, but I don't feel plagued by it. I don't feel debilitated by it. The difference for me, internally, is night and day.
See, worry and fear had become my God. I worshiped it by giving it all the attention I had. It had become my norm, in a strange way. It was just a part of me. And that's the problem of fear and worry. It consumes us with the wrong things. It's inward facing, it's all about self, and it's a prison. It traps us into thinking that we are all that matters. That we are our own solution. When we are free from the bondage of worry and fear, because there is serious bondage in those things, a paradigm shift happens. The sun doesn't rotate around the earth anymore. The earth rotates around the sun, and that sets everything else in perfect order.
So, the question remained, "What would I think about, if I didn't worry and fear all the time?" My new answer is this.... beauty. Beauty in the meaning and experience of true freedom, beauty in my kids, beauty in my marriage, beauty in the life I live, and have been graciously given. Beauty in figuring out who I am, and being me. I have been able to take better care of myself, make some amazing new friends, stop and smell the roses a bit more, and start to learn a new perspective- Living life with open palms instead of closed fists. I'm not walking around in la-la land, implying that I have this art mastered, or saying that I still don't have worries and fears creep up...hello, this world is filled with things to scare us, but what I am saying is that my mind has been freed, and I'm more quickly able to get my feet back on the ground than before. I am able to "just live," a lot more easily.
