Insidious Struggles

Fear, naked fear, ranks as one of the most (if not the most), constant, struggles I've attempted to overcome.  As a preteen, and before I truly understood their impact, two Scriptures attached themselves like vines in my spirit.  While designed most likely to allay trepidations, I  really didn't know what to do with them.  At any rate, Jesus declared one verse while St. Paul shared the other. 

In speaking to crowds of seekers, Jesus advised followers to "Ask and receive." Later, the Apostle Paul prescribed "love" as fear's antigen or cure.  Their advice sat like half-digested snacks eaten too close to midnight for years. I still didn't know how to handle fear.

My only other refuge derived from pulling a slew of other scriptural recitations out of my grab bag of "go-to's,"  much like retrieving multiplication tables from the back pages of memory lane.   The fears rarely abated, they didn't leave, even for recess.  No, like Topsy, they "just growed."

I'd get similar results when confronting other big problems! The Bible verses rang hollow in my ears and emptily in my heart.  Suffused with emptiness, at those times I shut down.  Inertia paralyzed me.  I wondered, "What am I to do? What can I do?

Asking for help signified weakness, or so I thought.  "You're such a crybaby! rang in one ear, while "He will never leave nor forsake you," echoed in the other!" I couldn't rescue myself from me. Keeping "a stiff upper lip" represented bravery, not cowardice. Even as an adult, stoicism reigned.

I had pummeled myself relentlessly in fear and blame when Philip, my first grandson, died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).  I'd assumed the role of "Nanny Granny" when my daughter went away to college a few months after his birth. I carried guilt everywhere we went.

Three years later, on a sunny Saturday morning, Dr. Angie, a friend and physician,  soaked up much of the blame-soaked recriminations of me as "why he died." I believed that somehow I caused his death. 

"How could you, Dorothie," she asked? Did you create Philip? Oh, you didn't? Well, darling," she said.  "If you didn't create your grandson, how dare you think you could determine when he died?" She waited for an answer that didn't come. 

Then, "Forgive me, but you didn't cause your precious grandson's transition to Heaven, his first abode.  Have you been carrying guilt around all this time? My goodness! It's time to forgive yourself.  I'll read the autopsy and explain as well as I can what actually happened." 

Subsequently, my fears and fears resembled circus metaphors, turbulent expanses of water, bleak and arid terrain, but rarely a bucolic landscape... so many.   

It wasn't until Courtney, my younger of two daughters, died that I felt forced, sometimes grudgingly and often reluctantly, to acknowledge or receive help where needed emotionally.  

It took a "Mother, may I?" and a shaky giant step before I took that risk.  I better appreciate realizing that no risk attaches itself to the two-step of asking and receiving help.

What has happened?  I've resumed a decades-old habit of daily readings from the Book of Proverbs, where King Solomon opines a lot about wisdom.  Other writers like James (1:5), a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, invited, "Anyone (is) lacking wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you."  

Subconsciously at first and later almost naturally,  I can readily attest that God honors my requests and those of all others who ask.  He always answers, whether or not we recognize them.

Try it, and like little Mikey of TV fame, (who's probably in his 30's now), you'll like it!