I became acquainted with fear as a child observing my mother and other family members. I observed that because they were afraid of doing most anything our family tended to have the same outcomes. This observation greatly shaped the adult I would become.
I would acquire an extreme fear of committment. If I could redo about two decades of relationships I would. Bad choices left layers of pain. As a youth, I developed the idea that marriage was evil. I saw nothing good in it. Marriage created siblings that meant extra responsibilities. More work for my mother. Arguments over adult issues and the list goes on and on. I decided by the time I became a teen that I would never get married. I would at most have a live in boyfriend with a backup just in case.
I carried all of these fears into my marriage and oh the devastation it caused. I didn’t even notice what was happening. I remember one day being in the kitchen and I just began to cry. “God why did you place these three people under my care? I’m such a failure. I never wanted a family and you totally rearranged my life! Look at the mess I’ve created.” I received the most gentle reply as I walked to the table and opened the bible. I had never seen the scripture before, but I had to go sit down after reading Psalm 68:6.
My tears of frustration turned into tears of gratitude. He had connected two of the most lonely people, my husband and myself, across an ocean. My husband had said prayer for a family far away from Nigeria. On my end I had a five-year old telling me his house was supposed to have a daddy that lived there with us. My youngest son is a handful! My husband found my match.com profile. I can only laugh at how all of this happened. You live long enough to be able to recognize divine intervention when it happens because you go around in a daze asking if what occurred really happened the way it did.
As I sat on the couch, I realized that God had blessed me with children and a husband so that I would know what unconditional love felt like and all I did was complain about it. Months ago in a soaking worship service I had a vision of myself as a child. I was in a pit in a white dress turning in circles. I was searching for someone to love me, but no one ever came. Although I was in this pit, there was the brightest light all around me and the most beautiful lawn. God whispered to me, “You will never have to search for love like that again.” Have you ever been totally wrecked with gratitude? I needed so many kleenex that evening. It was an epic day for healing a very deep hurt that I had carried for decades. I hurt my family because I was broken and hurting. I have sense learned you should enter into marriage a whole person. My husband and I had no pre-marital counseling, but lots of issues that should have been discussed.
I have recently joined a hiking group, The James River Hikers, and completed several hikes. I signed my mom, aunt and myself up to complete an eight mile hike the weekend of my son’s graduation. This hike is my most treasured. My nickname for my mom is Chicken Little. Neither of us knew we would literally be walking across the James river that day. Literally. The bridge was as wide as my hips, no room for stepping errors.
We started the hike in good spirits and then my mother fell in the woods. I looked back at my aunt who gave me the oh Lord look, but we kept going. I don’t know how I became the leader of the line when we got to the pipeline walk, but I was first to go. Panic began to rise from my toenails! Not only that, but vertigo one two punched me and I froze. I began to yell that I was too dizzy to keep going while trying to remember deep breathing techniques to calm myself down. My mother who is terribly afraid of water because she can’t swim began to yelp like a hyena, “I can’t do this!” My aunt stood in the middle of us extremely embarrassed. How in the hell were we going to cross this river?! We were too far onto the pipeline to turn back. Our only choice was to get over ourselves and move forward.
2 Timothy 1:7 – God did not give us a spirit that makes us afraid but a spirit of power and love and self-control.
I locked eyes with my mother. I knew she was going off my energy. If my panic escalated any more she was going off the cliff. I had Chicken Little in the middle of the river! I began to say that scripture over and over again still keeping my mom’s gaze. I calmed down, but vertigo was literally keeping everyone in the same spot because of me. A man made his way over some rocks and stood in front of me. He placed both hands behind my back and told me to follow him. Others did the same for my mom and aunt. Divine correlations. All I had to do was focus on the wording on the back of that man’s t-shirt to get across the pipeline. And then the narrow metal bridge happened. I was like c’mon Jesus this is too much! Yours truly had to walk that bridge solo. I grabbed both sides and just said that scripture out loud over and over. I didn’t care if I lost my breath I just wanted to stop walking on water. We make it across that bridge only to come face to face with a ladder in rock that needs to be climbed to continue the hike. I wanted to cry. I was at total meltdown status and just stood there looking at the ladder. The ladder was over the water. If I made one wrong move I was toast. The hikers who had already climbed up the river noticed I wasn’t moving. They talked me up the ladder. The joy of having your feet on pavement! My mother and aunt made it across. My mother and I hugged and she was crying. We were so happy.
That day was so significant. My mother had faced a childhood fear and overcame it. I too have overcome my fear of loving my husband and no longer feel a need to push him away. If he could only just find the courage to believe in me.
Has fear kept you crippled in some area of your life? Is it causing you to have more regrets than memories? Just remember, you have the power within yourself to be set free. All it takes is a little determination, focus and a decision not to look back.
The Unconventional Life 