I discovered one of my favorite verses for the very first time hours after a friend passed away after a two year battle with cancer. Finding it is my favorite personal miracle. I had gotten the Bible 7months earlier for my 16th birthday, so it hadn't been very long, but I to this day have no recollection of writing the reference in the front of it. After crying for hours, tossing and turning and finding no rest or solace in sleep, I grabbed my pink and brown Bible, and just started flipping, searching desperately for something comforting. I remember the ache and the pain so well, feeling so needy for His word. I don't know how long I flipped around in the Word, feeling lost and broken, but I opened the front flap and there scrawled in blue ink was John 16:33. Still feeling lost and in desperate need, I turned to it and discovered Jesus's sweet words:
"I have told you these things,
so that in Me you may have peace.
In this world you will have trouble.
But take heart!
I have over come the world!"
I finally rested after that. What a sweet and timely gift. The memory, and the words, have stuck with me since then. I would never want to repeat that season or experience again, but I also wouldn't trade all the things I learned and experienced for anything.
After such an impressionable memory, the verse pops up often. I pay extra attention when someone posts it, because its one that has so much significance to me. Therefore, anytime I experience the sense of fear, I remind myself that Jesus said to "take heart!" Because He's already overcome it.
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I've never been a particularly fearful person, but I confess, for whatever reason, the last year or so, I've dealt with fear in an exceptional way. I can't put my finger on why or when it started, but almost every time I see a news article about a fatal crash on a highway I know specific friends drive, or in an area I know people, I panic until see some indication that they're ok. I don't talk about it, but its there, lingering in my mind: fear. With its long, knotted fingers grasping my mind and heart and squeezing until I'm almost irrational in my thoughts.
My dad and I drive separately to work so that we each have our vehicles to go and come as we need, and fairly often, we get separated on our commute either just because of light cycles or taking different routs. But this morning as I pulled into our parking lot and looked down, expecting to see is truck, all I saw was darkness, and panic filled my racing heart. As I got closer, his truck was there, and the lights came on, taking the darkness and my fear with them. But in those moments between not seeing and then seeing his truck, all I could think was he had been in a wreck and because I took a different road, I wouldn't know. Was I supposed to open without him? Do I drive his rout and look for him? Do I call the police? Mom? Do I just wait?
Fear is a gripping virus. As soon as I saw his truck and the lights, as soon as I see this friend isn't even in that part of town, or that family member is clearly fine, I realize how ridiculous the fearful feelings were. How irrational and how gripping they are. Its after the fact, that I remember to take heart.
We are told over and over to "fear not" to "have no fear". We're told to trust Him. To be still in Him. Another of my favorite verses says "Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and see the Lord’s salvation He will provide for you today " (see Exodus 14:13&14) I love these verses, and I believe them, so why is it so hard to take heart? I'm not writing because I have the solutions, I'm writing because I need the prayer. I need to confess this and walk in faith.
Paralyzing fear isn't from Him. Today I am claiming the promise that I have a new spirit, one of power, love, and sound mind.
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