Ive never realized until very recently what fear does to a person. There are some pretty fearful memories I have as a kid. And most of them are of the physical nature. But now I know how damaging fear is to the emotional piece of a person.
As I recall it, I was absolutely frozen with fear as I stared into those little beady eyes. Those beady eyes that seemed to stare a hole right thru me. I stood frozen in fear. It really was like a grip that I couldn't get out of. And yea, I thought about running. But it was like the circuit from my brain to my feet had shorted out and my feet stayed planted. Just like those eyes stayed planted on me. Like it just knew I was tapping into the greatest amount of fear ever felt by a human. I could hear my cousins playing in a sandbox only about 20 feet away. I screamed as loud as I've ever screamed before. But no one answered me. I knew they heard me. How could they not? I screamed again as I stared at those dreaded eyes, staring back at me. Gripped with fear. Paralyzed. Frozen. Alone. Surely I would die. Standing in my cousin's yard, only a few feet from them. I'm not even sure why I wandered to where I was in the first place. We were all playing together and I decided to leave. I don't know what I was doing. Maybe retrieving a baseball or some other toy. But whatever it was, I found something else. I found my greatest fear. The fear that only existed in the scariest of nightmares. The fear that I was certain would never find me. It had only ever found me in my dreams. And now, a snake lay before me. Right before my eyes.
My fear stared me in the face. And I stared at it. Impending doom. My greatest fear had come upon me. It was a garter snake. And I knew that even if it did bite me, it wasn't poisonous. And I wouldn't die. But even the truth of that couldn't penetrate past my heart that was tormented by that fear of being bitten by a snake. All those animal planet shows my dad insisted on watching. Snakes swallowing whole animals. Snakes sinking their venomous fangs into the ankle of an unsuspecting hiker. Snakes were my greatest fear. I didn't get bitten. I didn't get swallowed up. But I do think I ran like hell...and so did that snake. Well...slithered. I remember making a b-line to the house. Or maybe the sandbox. I only remember the fear.
When I got to where my cousins were playing, I remember asking them if they heard me screaming. And for some reason, I remember them saying they had. I was so confused why no one came to my rescue. It was then that I decided that I was the one who had to rescue myself whenever I was facing impending doom. Paralyzing fear. I would be the best person to rescue myself from fear.
My other big fear as a kid was being taken or hurt by a stranger. I never went anywhere alone. Sometimes i ran to the bus stop because I was afraid someone was behind me. No one ever was. And I may have looked silly with my heavy back pack heaving back and forth on my back as I pumped my arms and legs harder and harder with each stride. But I didn't care. I ran anyway.
One specific day after playing a successful game of street hockey in front of my house with all the neighborhood boys, I was gripped with fear again. One of the boys convinced me that that day would be the last day I lived. How did he do that? With a story that wasn't true. But I believed him. He was my friend. Why would he lie to me? As we sat on my porch, probably drinking some sort of juice box, a car drove by extremely slow. There were at least 2 men iniside. The driver rolled down his window and he slowed the car to a complete stop. I thought he knew the boy I was sitting with. He didn't. Or maybe he did. I'll never know. The man reached out his window and pointed up at my house. And looked at me. Then he pulled his arm back into the car and rolled up the window and drove off. I looked at my friend and asked if he knew those men. He said no. And then proceeded to tell me a story of impending doom. And I was paralyzed with fear once more. My 'friend' told me that the same thing happened to someone else. Some strange man stopped on front of a house and pointed at it then drove off. I asked what happened. He told me that that same night, when everyone had gone to bed in the house that the men stopped in front of, they broke into the house and hurt the people inside. I was young. Gullible. Stupid. And a girl. I believed him.
For the rest of the that day, I prayed that nighttime would never come. When my dad got home, I told him what was going to happen. He didn't believe me. No matter how much I tried to make him believe me, he wouldn't. That hot summer night, I didn't sleep. My room was in the back of the house. I couldn't see from my window where those men would enter the house. The only place where I would be able to see was in a closet that had a tiny window facing the street. But I wasn't allowed in there. My mom hid Christmas presents in there. And the door creaked. And the floor did too. I would wake everyone up if I tried to sneak in there. So I sat in my bed. Door closed. Blankets up over my head. And I listened. And I baked under my blankets. Sweat built up around my forehead in little beads as I awaited my impending doom. I tried not to breathe as deeply because the men would see the blankets moving up and down. Every little noise. Every crack of the house settling. My heart beat out of my chest. My thoughts raced. They sounded like the feet of horses beating the ground on a race track. Images from crime shows and the most heinous criminals from shows like America's Most Wanted filled my little active mind. I told my dad how much I hated that show. How much it scared me. But he loved it. So he always won. And I always went to bed on Saturday nights, fearing I'd be taken from my bed. Hurt by scary, bearded men.
I didn't get bitten by that snake. And those 2 scary looking men didn't steal me and hurt me like my friend said. But I believed the worst in both situations. It was me versus my greatest fear. I was the rescuer.
I came upon a blog post tonight that talked about the torment of fear. All of a sudden, as I nodded my head fervently in agreement, I became keenly aware of my fear. The annoying ticking of the second hand on the clock was the only thing I could hear. And after 90 minutes of sitting in this hospital room with a sleeping patient, I became aware of the annoying ticking sound for the first time. It made me anxious. I don't know why. I sat frozen in my fear. As I recalled the snake stare down. The night I spent awake. Fearing for my life. It became so real to me again. The fear enveloped me. Like a tsunami wave crashing over an unsuspecting shore. Swallowing a big gulp of sand and sun-bathing starfish.
The blog post mentioned the top 3 relational fears; being wrong, failure and rejection. Oh man. That makes me tremble more than that dumb snake. I've experienced those 3 relational fears. They suck. No warm fuzzies. Those 3 fears errect a great big wall of protection around your heart. Impenetrable. Thick solid bricks. Hiding the warmth of sunlight. Blocking truth. Defending against anything that might try to break through or scale its tough exterior. Crossing its cement arms in the face of love and freedom.
But Jesus. He can bust thru at any moment. But He won't. He's patient. He'll wait until you're ready. And maybe he'd bust thru. But maybe he'll remove the fear one brick at a time. Until finally the last brick of fear is no longer. And then there is only Him. Truth. Love. And Grace.
