Fear

Frozen in terror. Panic-stricken. Scared stiff. All of those things applied to me when I woke up this morning at 2am to see a man standing next to my bed (and MY man was laying in bed next to me). He had his back to me and as my heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest and kung fu chop him, I couldn't bring myself to speak or to move.
Finally the man made a noise...

....that sounded an awful lot like my 6 year old daughter Rachel.

I thought I was going to pass out. Rachel was standing on the side of my bed, on the bedrails. Which happened to make her much taller than she really is. She was also holding her bundle of blankets that are a must-have for her to sleep. Which made her appear much bulkier than she really is.

I had those few moments of uncertainty that were full of terror, where I was convinced I was about to be bludgeoned to death in my bed by some man that was staring at the lamp on my nightstand, and then realized it was just my daughter needing to be comforted by her own bad dream. Relief flooded over me, then that feeling of loving being a mom and being needed by my baby when she wanted comforting.

Lying there afterwards, trying to get my heart back to a normal rate of beating, I thought about how often in life I see a situation that at first seems of certain disaster and spend those moments of panic and fear of how I'm going to handle the problem...rather than my instinct being to turn to God and rely on His protection and grace and provision. My daugther's first instinct in her time of fear was to run to me, her protector and provider, because she knew I would be there to do that for her. My first instinct was to figure out how in the world I was going to grab the baseball bat by my nightstand with this man standing right next to it at the same time.

My prayer is that I will continue to grow in my faith, and hand over my fears to God. He has gotten me through so many different problems and fears in my lifetime, and I still try to keep control of things myself. I can say that is human nature, but we are called to give these things over to God, which tells me that if we are of Him, if we have Jesus and the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we are capable of living up to that calling.

Psalm 4:8 "I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."

Isaiah 41:10 "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

Amen.