Today I am joining in for my first every Five Minute Friday over at Lisa-Jo’s Blog! This is my first time ever writing a post “for” a link up, but the word afraid moved my spirit when I saw it as a post title on another friend’s blog.
Afraid
“i’m cared…i’m cared…mooom”
I hold him tight, cuddled in the fetal position as a mama bear to her cub in a cold summer’s night. He was scared.
Children are so honest with their emotions, feelings, thoughts and perceptions. Because they are honest and often wear their feelings full force on their faces, as a mother it easy to know what is going on in their hearts. When they sin, it is as plain as day. When they are scared, you know and have the ability to pray for, nurture and try to bring comfort.
Fast forward 10 years… these babes are no longer running to your room scared and needing you to cuddle them, but they do have fears. Do they share their fears? How do they view fear? Do they view it as something one isn’t supposed to have, do they try to be tough enough? Or do they know that everyone has fear? That it is a choice to let fear stop you, even as an adult!
I have struggled with fear. The first time word got out I was writing Redeeming Childbirth, I was so afraid. I thought, now I really have to do it! But isn’t that one of the tricks? Being vulnerable. Telling others what you fear so they can encourage you, just like that little boy who needed to feel safe. I don’t want to live, look back and see a list of things I wish I would have done but didn’t because I feared.
You want to know something about me? I fear people more than anything else. I don’t fear death or pain, I fear what people think of me… of my writing… of my heart. So when I write and I share my heart… I fear. But God tells us in His word that He has not given us a spirit of fear, not even to fear man.
“For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control.” 2 Timothy 1:7
Fear is a universal state of being that is universal–all people struggle with it at one point or another in their life. For my husband and I, it is one of those “battles” we have chosen to teach on intentionally in our home. In fact, fear can effect our lives in such a drastic way, that I dedicated a whole chapter to fear and lies women believe in my new book Redeeming Childbirth. It covers the comparison between the “Fear of Man” and “Fear of God!”
What are you going to do that you fear? Is there anything you have been fearful of doing that maybe God has called you too?
Share it, ask for prayer and encouragement and take action… show your children what it means to own your fear, admit it and choose to not let it guide your inaction!
I pray you experience the joy that comes from being freed from your fear, just as I have been!
Angie Tolpin
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Confession, this wasn’t really 5 minutes… it was more like 15… but not bad for a first time trying to limit myself!
