Letting Go of Fear
“Let Go of Fear”
When I was writing yesterday’s post, I was feeling so overwhelmed. I have the usual stresses of everyday life…dental work that needs to be done, taxes that need to be filed, new brakes and inspection on the truck. Then there are the dead and dying…of which there are far too many. I hadn’t been sleeping well. Mr. FixIt has been busy and tired. I had that all too familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was one crisis away from losing it altogether and I hate that. So I did what needed to be done…I had a good cry and went to church.
Last night was the Annual Women’s Conference at my church. There wasn’t an empty chair in the place. I don’t know if you have ever gone to an all women service before, but if you haven’t…you NEED to. Between the estrogen and Jesus, that place was electric. We have a great praise team and they didn’t disappoint. We played some get-to-know-each-other games. We had a share-your-selfie-on-social-media contest. There were prizes and cookies. Then Pastor Heather spoke about letting faith rise up in us instead of fear, worry, anxiety. She knew her audience. We are women. This is what we do.
The thing is, by allowing fear to rise up in us instead of faith, we are not letting God do His job. We are trying to do it for Him. When we are standing in the storms of life, it is not our basic instinct to lay back and relax. We start rowing the boat double time. We try to skirt around the storm. We try to ignore the storm. We try to just wait out the storm. The quietest part of a hurricane is the eye. It is windless standing in the center. When we let go and let faith rise up in us, God sets us down in the eye where we are protected from the storm’s fury. In the meantime, we get out of God’s way so He can do His work.
By the end of the evening, the atmosphere was fairly crackling. We were given symbolic coins and asked to hold them in our hands and charge them with the worries, stresses, anxieties, and fears that weigh us down and keep us from enjoying God’s Peace. As we left the conference, we threw those “coins” in a fountain in the lobby…symbolically leaving them behind. I felt so much better as I drove home. I still have all that stuff going on in my life, but now I’m reminded to let go and let God take care of His part. If I go to God FIRST, if I ask Him to take over, life just goes SO much smoother.
I was going to take a break this weekend, but I felt inspired to share this with you today and those who have been around long enough know I can’t go without writing every day. I hope you have a beautiful Saturday! ❤
“The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?” Psalm 118:6 NIV