(Part 1 of 3)
This is not the first time that I’ve lost my legs from underneath me. In fact, I spent more than two decades of my life paralyzed.
By fear.
It began when I was a little girl. Nightmares, fear of the dark, and anxiety about the boys who chased the girls on the playground at school.
By the time I was in high school and college, I was nauseated by every first day of school and by the thought of getting less than an “A” on an assignment and by the idea of singing in front of a soul. I wouldn’t swim near pool filters because of a documentary I saw ages before about people getting suctioned against them. I was crippled by even the thought of nighttime, whether I was alone or in company. My parents were in the next room. My sister was in the next bed. But I felt like I was completely alone and exposed. I laid awake, imagining elaborate scenarios of fires and attackers. I hated the dark. I hated windows and stairwells. I hated silence, but I hated every little sound that creaked around me, too.
When I got married and started having kids, the fear multiplied. The nightmares worsened. I searched Google for every uncomfortable symptom that I felt. I wouldn't read the news about what was going on in the world. I couldn’t walk in the safety of my small-town neighborhood with my baby in a stroller without chills rising from my wrists to my neck and vivid pictures of all of the possible horrible events that might take place around me. If my husband had a meeting that ran late at night, I was certain that something terrible had happened to him and was about to happen to me, too. I would sit on the floor of my baby’s bedroom as she slept, with my phone and my keys in my hand, waiting for a call that my husband was dead, listening for sounds that weren’t there, preparing to grab my child and climb out the window with her to escape whatever danger I was sure was on its way to us.
I longed for the fear to go away.
I knew Jesus. I memorized verses about trusting God. “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?” (Psalm 27:1). I asked people to pray with me, pray for me, pray over me. I had been taught methods for casting out fear and the words to say to make the bad things go away. I tried them all. For years. And I was still afraid.
I was angry that I couldn’t fix my problem. I was frustrated that it wouldn’t go away. I wondered where my faith was and why God wouldn’t just release me from the fear. I felt helpless.
And then, something began to shift.
I realized that I had been using Jesus like a formula. I didn’t really trust Him. I was trying to make the darkness go away in my own power, by just saying Jesus’ name. There is an account in Acts 19 of seven men who were trying to cast out demons “in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches.” One of the demons looked at them and said, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” (v. 15) Then, the demons proceeded to beat them and leave them naked and bleeding. These men were trying to use Jesus’ name like a formula. They didn’t really believe in what He could do. And they certainly didn’t believe that His plans—whatever they looked like—truly were the best ones.
As it turned out, neither either did I.
My pastor suggested that I try something else in my dreams, when I was confronted by frightening things. He reminded me that there’s nothing that evil hates more than God being praised. He told me to try, instead of just using my previous methods, to sing to Jesus.
Sure enough, that night, I had a terrible dream. Before I could be overpowered, right there in the dream, I began to sing to Jesus, for Jesus, about Jesus. To praise Him. To thank Him. To love Him.
And I woke up. Free. It’s been four years. And I haven’t had one of those nightmares since.
I could sleep in peace, worshipping my Savior. “On my bed I remember You; I think of You through the watches of the night. Because You are my help, I sing in the shadow of Your wings. My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me,” (Psalm 63:7-8).
But, when the nightmares when away, the fear in the daytime got worse. Much worse. So much worse that I was afraid of the idea of actually being freed from it, because I imagined that it would just come back worse than it had been before. The enemy was taunting me.
Again, I got frustrated. I was angry with myself for not taking God at His word that I didn’t need to be afraid. If I believe that God is for me, not against me, then why am I living like He’s not on my side? Why am I living in fear? Do I believe that God means it when He says, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine,” (Isaiah 43:1)? Do I believe that I love Him and that He loves me when He says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,” (I John 4:18)?
Then, I was reminded of something that seemed so simple, but it changed everything…
(Continued in “How Living in Fear Robs Us of Life: Part 2”).
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