Freedom From Fear

I have spent too much time in my life being afraid: afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. Slowly, over the past few months, this fear has begun to disappear. It is not completely gone, but it is small enough and weak enough that I can begin to really examine it, poke it, and try to understand how it got so small.

Fear is a nasty choking thing, like kudzu vine. It cuts off all the good things in life from air and light, starving them with alien efficiency. If left long enough, it will pull down these once strong structures, collapse them under its own paralyzing weight.

When I was living with fear, I would do the very things that would ensure that the fear would stay longer, take deeper root. I was afraid of social situations, of reaching out to others, of being vulnerable. So I stayed at home; I ignored phone calls and did not return e-mails. Fear is vicious like that: the very thing I needed to do to make the fear wither and die was the thing fear kept me from doing. I am far less afraid of meeting new people, of taking risks in relationship, when I already have dear friends in my life to anchor and support me. Then one rejection doesn’t leave me completely unmoored.

I’m still not sure how I left fear and depression behind me. Perhaps the first shaft of sunlight came when an acquaintance came to stay with me for the weekend. We verbally danced around each other for a while, each of us hinting at our stories without really telling them, when absolute need to confess drove me to become vulnerable. And I was not rejected, but loved, shown grace and friendship and mutual vulnerability.

Then, very slowly, over the course of the next two years, that one friend continued to show me love and friendship, even while I was still afraid and not always the most reliable of friends, but she introduced me to other people, some of whom I now call “friend”.

There were other things that inevitably helped me become free from fear. I started biking to work. It seems such an odd thing, but as I stayed with it faithfully, and slowly improved my fitness level, I gained a lot of pride in this accomplishment. There wasn’t much in my life at the time of which I could be proud. And as I was later to discover, it also gave me an activity in common with one friend in particular. The way to freedom is an odd road, isn’t it? I mean, among other things, I credit a bike with changing my life.

I also was given direction in my life. I had been wandering aimlessly for a few years, thrown off track from my original plans and unable to find a way forward. But I was graced with purpose, and that too is freedom from fear. Knowing who I am and that God cares and is directing my steps--even though I’ve messed up badly--is very freeing. It is something I hope I will always cling to, even if life seems unclear again.

Meanwhile this particular cycling friend was also playing his part. His very confidence made my fears shrink--the way people will take cues about how to respond to a strange situation from others. His fearlessness was a gentle rebuke to me, a reminder that I have no reason to be afraid. He also kept inviting me to do things--go to this party, or that event, or come over for tea. Initially, I shrunk from these invitations, but gradually, as I got to know him better and be less afraid, I started accepting them.

My own determination to get out of this place of fear also played a role in all of this. I gave up trying at times, shrinking within myself and not leaving my apartment, but I never utterly gave up hope or gave up trying. Later I would find myself driven by a need for human contact to go to church or a concert or a party. Sometimes I was glad I went, and sometimes I wished I had stayed at home. And in this haphazard fashion, I slowly became less afraid.

My fears are not completely gone, and they may never be. Just a few weeks ago, they reared their ugly Medusa-like head when the completely unexpected happened to me. I couldn’t control my initial reaction to pull away and panic a bit, but given a night to think about this strange turn of events, I was able to step away from the fear and choose rightly, to take the wild path marked “a terrible good”, rather than the safe one that doesn’t go anywhere.

Now my fears are even smaller, something I can hold in my hand. They don’t control me anymore--not for long, anyway. Sometimes, I don’t notice that they are even there. And the more I go out, the more people I am willing to trust with my story, the less those fears will affect me. This blog is a demonstration of my freedom from fear. It is only recently that this even became possible for me to do, and already I seem to do it well.

It is a truly marvelous thing to be set free from fear. It feels like the whole world has been made new, that I am indeed a new creation.