Living with Fear

I'm afraid of bees. I'm afraid of being lonely. I'm afraid of bats. I'm afraid of making a fool of myself. I'm (mildly) afraid of the dark. I'm afraid of failure. And more and more recently, I'm really afraid of the world I live in.

My whole life I've felt lucky to live in America, but recently I've found myself wishing I lived somewhere else. There's been so many scary things happening here. So many senseless acts of violence and crazy politics, and that's just in current events. And now we're in this crazy spiral where all we can talk about is the horror happening all around us. I've actually seen people get angry because people post about lighter topics. And if it's a celebrity related lighter topic, well then, you clearly have no regard for anything.

Here's the thing though. I don't mind these other posts. I'm actually really grateful for these other posts. If I thought about all the bad things that have the potential to happen every time I step out my door, I never would. I would truly and honestly lock myself inside forever and only leave when it's absolutely necessary.

And who could blame me? It's not like anywhere is safe anymore. Schools aren't safe, movie theaters aren't safe, churches aren't safe, public gatherings aren't safe. And I'm not even just talking about active shooter situations. The possibilities are endless. I've never had a panic attack before, but I feel like I could just thinking about all the horrible things that could potentially happen. I can't live like that and, besides that, I don't particularly want to.

So yes, I'm grateful for all the lighter things being posted on social media. Without them, I'd have given up Facebook months ago. I shouldn't have to feel bad about that.

That's not really what I'm here to talk about, though. What I'm here to talk about is what to do with all this fear. How do I deal with this in a way that I'm not living my entire life scared? All that stuff about having nothing to fear because the Lord is with me: what do I do with that? It's extremely hard for me to not be scared, but I know I can't live my life like that if I want to truly be able to say that I trust God.

I have no answers. I just have a lot of questions. I'm not even really looking for quick answers, because I don't think they exist. I just want to pose these questions. How do I vote in this election in a way that's not out of fear? How do I balance regard for personal safety without crossing into paranoia?  How should we deal with fear? When do we need to leave fear behind and lean on God?  I don't want to be scared. I want to help make the world a place where I don't have to be so scared, but that's not going to eliminate every frightening variable. I feel like Junior the Asparagus: Where's God when I'm Scared??

I guess that's all for now. Sorry for the super depressing post to break my recent radio silence. As an apology, here is a really funny cat video.

-Lisa