The Good Kind of Fear

There aren’t many Sunday morning’s that I don’t find myself standing in awe, with tears in my eyes as I sing praises to Jesus. I am not one to stand with my arms held high, outstretched toward the ceiling of the sanctuary, but am more inclined to feel weighted; yet completely free, with my head hanging down to the floor in reverence to the one whose feet I will fall at someday.

Often I belt out words that  feel like they are directly aligned and connected to my soul, reminding me of how small and fragile I am on my own, how strong and courageous I have grown as a woman following Jesus, and how far I have come from that my old life-only because of the transforming love and blind acceptance that Jesus offers everyone who believes.

Every day, not only Sunday mornings, I am reminded in subtle and painstakingly obvious ways that this life that I live is literally, a dream come true.

This journey has been tough and scary.

Through my fear, I have found the peace I feel like I had been desperately searching for in every unhealthy, toxic place imaginable. Despite feeling terrified to the point of freezing in place, refusing to face my past and my mistakes, I pushed through and came out alive and unshackled.

On the other side of debilitating fear.

Fear kept me quiet for a long time.

I lived my life with my head hanging down trying my best to blend and escape from who I was.

It felt like I was walking around with a 100lb vest on my body every single day, as I waited expectantly for the next explosive crisis to implode what little I had left to destroy of my life.

Each day I battled with my mind and my body as I yearned for escape and a safety net, yet I silently sided with the fear that held me down in the same head space.

I feared to feel the force of everything that I had been hiding behind and running from.

So many years of emotions that I couldn’t identify and pain I didn’t know where to set down.

I didn’t know what might happen if I stayed still or sober long enough to find out.

I was terrified of the unknown and there were a lot of question marks.

I wasn’t sure that I could live through the trauma of walking through my secrets or exposing why I felt so much shame for being alive.

I hated where I came from, but even more, I despised the places I had allowed myself to go.

I hit bottom several times.

I didn’t have that one rock bottom, ah-ha moment.

I had a series of events unfold in my life that brought me to a brand new level of defeat and exhaustion; a depth of self-deprecation that drained the rest of the life out of my soul and the light out of my already dead eyes.

Fear can scare us into changing our ways, but it can also be the roadblock that hinders us from taking a step forward, toward a better, healthier, fuller, reality that we crave.

I thank God every day that I took the leap without knowing which direction I would go after landing on the other side of the unknown, scraping my face off of the pavement.

Hell. Anything was better than how I was living my life.

I found life on the other side of my fear. The same fear that kept me quiet.

And guess what?

Although I jumped over the first hurdle, just barely making it over as my toes scraped against the ground, sending me on a nosedive on the other side, I was still overcome with worry, anxiety, and fear.

And I still made it.

I think the secret is -there is no secret.

We’re all scared. We jump. We are unsure. There is always a space held for the unknown.

None of us know exactly what will happen if we speak our truth, tell our stories, face our fears, admit our mistakes, or allow ourselves to be loved.

That’s how faith works.

Recovery is a progressive process that asks that we trust the process of what’s coming next if we do our part of working and living honest, reflective lives.

It promises things to us and it delivers. Our truth is brought into the light, and as we wince, we can also exhale. We are healing.

Of course- Its totally scary

but it’s the good kind of scary.