Forced To Face Our Fears

Your largest fear carries your greatest growth - Unknown

I have a worry book that I write in from time to time. I started it when my anxiety was high. It occurred to me as a child of God that He has given us tools to not be afraid. Yet here I was fearing so much it was affecting my life. In God’s gentle way, I heard about creating a worry book. In it I would write my worries as they would come and pray about it and leave it to God to handle A way of getting it out of my system onto that paper and walking away. It has really helped me. As my prayers were getting answered I would then return and write them down in my book.

I have since changed the name to Trust Book as I have felt that I wanted to take away the negative of being a worrier and make it more about trust. I have found that reading through my Trust Book I am reminded of ways God has been there and gotten me through past problems. A great reminder when new ones pop up. I realized that the things we worry about are generally things we are afraid of. Reading through my book today, there are some things I was afraid of happening and they still did. I had always believed growing up that once you pray to God for something He would take it away and save you like a superhero. That if I was not saved then God didn’t hear me, forgot or I was not good enough. As I got older, I realized none of this was true. Especially as I started to see the pattern. There were certain fears I was forced to face.

Fears that I needed to get over, gave God a chance to show His power in a different way.

During my difficult marriage, I was afraid to face the truth of the reality. So much so I put it in my TRUST book. I was afraid to face the truth that my husband was not in love with me. I was afraid to see all the abuse and cheating and kept praying to God to fix my marriage. I put it all down expecting him to correct this man and make things better and right. But there are some things we need to face. God instead exposed him to me over and over again. A person I looked up to who had observed us one day told me it was time to face the truth. Facing this fear then pushed me towards a new strength in my life.

When I was going through my divorce, I was afraid once again. I was afraid he would try to take my son from me. I put this all to God. I prayed and wrote it in my TRUST book and told myself that it was going to be okay. But once again, it happened. He asked for schedules knowing that with my work schedule I would only see my son two nights a week. My nightmare was happening. But this time it was to give God a chance to show how amazing He is. The judge did not agree to that schedule. We got a reasonable schedule for both of us, and I thank God every day! Facing this fear grew my faith in God.

Sometimes God is not answering our prayers for our own good. It’s good to remember answered prayers and those answered in ways we were not expecting. It’s these reminders that we should take with us to our next fear. Knowing that if we keep looking up to God, we can face each fear knowing He is in control. We can face each fear knowing he will not leave us alone but walk with us and guide us through it. We’ve got this!