So, I chose to end my relationship and that is exactly what I did. This relationship I speak of was not with another person. For as long as I can remember, I have been in a relationship with fear.
Like I mentioned in the first paragraph, I let fear control me. I let fear turn me into a different person. I believed the lies that fear told me. I would let fear consume me to the point that I would just shake and became unable to move. I would believe that if I just prayer harder, or if I just ignored it, it would go away. Sometimes fear would leave me and I would think, finally, I am free. Within a few months (or sometimes even just days), it would sneak back in and I would be in a downward spiral of emotions that would consume me.
The first thing I was afraid of was giraffes. Yea? it is weird right? When I was a little girl, only 1 or 2, my room was on the second story of our house. I had a window in my room and I remember being terrified at night that a giraffe was going to look in my window at me while I was asleep. Of course this is silly. Giraffes are incredible, but that is how the enemy introduces fear.
I went through a period of my life where I was terrified of skeletons. I won't go into much detail, but I saw a picture of skeletons and for at least a year, I was terrified to go to sleep. My parents and my sister would take turns sleeping with me, because if someone wasn't with me, I wouldn't fall asleep. As I would lay in bed, I would imagine that there was a skeleton sitting in my bean bag chair just on the other side of my head board. Again, it sounds totally silly, but the fear was really real.
As I have grown up, I have still come across many fears, but they have started to change. I was always afraid of what others will think of me. I was afraid that I would let people down. I was afraid that I wasn't good enough. I was afraid that I would fail. And it would still consume me.
When I came home from Honduras, I was left with so much anxiety. Anxiety would consume me. Anxiety is just a feeling of fear. It is really nothing more than that. But I would use my anxiety as an excuse to get out of doing something that made me uneasy. (I believe anxiety is very real and part of my anxiety was due to my health, but a majority of it was just a state of mind that I had control over).
Fear robbed me of so much enjoyment in life. I missed out on opportunities because I was afraid of what could happen. I altered plans for my life because I was afraid of what others might think about me. Fear was lonely, it isolated me. Fear was confusing and it would twist my thoughts until I thought I was crazy. Fear robbed me of a full life.
I am standing on the other side of fear now. I have given it too many years of my life to pick it back up. Because I am a child of God, I have not been given a spirit of fear. This means that I have authority over it and it cannot control me. I do not believe that fear is a part of life, especially if you are a child of God. I do believe that God has given you a spirit of power and of love and a sound mind, which are all the opposite of fear. I do believe that you can walk in complete and total freedom from fear and whatever stronghold is holding you back in life.
And that is why I write this friends, I write this hoping that someone clicks on it and reads it and thinks "hey! I am not alone." I write what I struggle with in hopes that it may help someone who is struggling through the same thing. I write because I want you to know that I am always here and willing to listen and pray for you. I also write because I want to call what we keep hidden into the light, because when it is in the light, it loses its power.
Remember that as a child of God, you are not a slave. Whatever is holding you back, whatever chains are attached to your life, whatever bondage you are in, whatever lie you are believing, it has no authority over you unless you give it authority. You can take that authority away in a split second because you are a child of God and you have that power through Christ. So, let it go friends. Drop it at the foot of the cross and enter into a life full of freedom.
