“Be careful.”
That’s what Mom always said when I left the house as a child. Or whenever I got in a car. Or in the water after I learned to swim. She was a good, loving mom but a fearful one. She didn’t like to go to unfamiliar places. Didn’t like us kids to take risks. She listened obsessively to the weather reports to warn us of approaching storms.
It wasn’t until I was a wife and mother myself that I realized I’d inherited that fear. Though I tried to cover up my anxiety, my children could see how nervous I was on planes, how I was the first to grab a life jacket when we went boating. I avoided using ladders or walking in our backyard near the woods after dark. I rarely drove after sunset or went down into the basement alone at night. The Bible said to “be strong and of good courage,” but the best I could do was to push myself to be where my children needed me. I prayed to God to give me the strength to be there in spite of my fears.
Now that my kids were growing up, I had fears for them too. When my son, Brandon, faced struggles in his own life, we started praying together in the evenings. One night, I was asking God to watch over him. In the middle of my prayer, I felt a release. As if something gripping my heart had just let go and been lifted out of me. I asked God what had left me.
A moment later, I realized it was the spirit of fear. It was gone. I’d never felt so at peace. But was such a thing possible? Could a lifetime of fear take flight in an instant?
I decided to test my new courage. I climbed a ladder—and wasn’t afraid! I walked in the backyard at night. Went down to the dark basement by myself. Even took a glass elevator.
My fear never returned. Today I fly in airplanes and I drive after dark. For years, I’d prayed for the strength to handle my fears when I should have given over those fears to God instead. So God reached down and took them from me.
The Gospel says that perfect love casts out fear. I felt God, in his perfect love, cast that fear out of me.
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