MORE LORD! a story of freedom

It’s Sunday night.  Sean, Bethany and I were sitting in the living room, just hanging out and talking about life.  Mainly about someone we knew, who struggles with fear.  As Sean and Bethany were going back and forth about the irrationality of this person’s fear, I found myself growing defensive.  I told them that maybe her fear was out of her control.  Maybe there were things that she went through or witnessed in her life that led to that fear and that they should try and be more understanding.  Bethany tells me that she believes that fear is a spirit, and that God doesn’t want you to live in fear.  She talked about how God wanted us to live and she may have quoted scripture- I don’t remember.  I said that that life of freedom from fear that she was talking about sounded great and all, if life were all sunshine and rainbows but that it’s just not realistic.  I believed that God knew every detail of my life, and so He knew that the result of losing people that I loved would be fear and those things happened anyway. And while I wholeheartedly believed that God’s timing is perfect and His plan for me is ultimately good, I also felt that He gave me the fear that I have and I just have to learn to deal with it…or not deal with it, as it so happens the majority of the time.  Bethany said that if I was feeling that His plan for me was something other than what I knew His heart to be, that I should be able to talk to Him about it, yell at Him about it, and question Him about it, just as I would my father on earth, just as I would a best friend…

At this point, I am losing my battle.  I’m crying, I can’t look either of them in the eye and so I get up.  I go to the bathroom just to get away from their crazy ideas.  As I sit there, with my face in my hands, tears streaming down my face, I do something that I had never done.  (In my head…) I yelled at GOD!!  WHAT?!?!  I told Him that I was sick of this fear that He had given me.  I asked Him why He would allow me to feel this way, HOW could He allow me to feel this way??  I repeated my question… many times.  Once I shut up, God began to tell me a story. 

 

After I listened for what felt like hours but was really only a few minutes (how does He do that??) I came out of the bathroom.  I told Sean and Bethany that the last thing she said didn’t make sense to me, because I had never had that kind of a relationship with my father- I would get angry, sure, I would be a complete brat, yeah.  But we never really resolved anything.  And friends?  Isn’t it just easier to make new friends??  I’m beginning to realize that I don’t have the healthiest of relationship practices!  I share with them the story that God told me.

It was about a girl on a path of self destruction.  A young girl whose father had died, who decided that if something could be taken from her so easily, then she should probably not get too involved or attached to things.  A girl who viewed everything as disposable.  Friends, family, relationships, jobs, stability, faith- all of it was so easily tossed aside whenever it wasn’t convenient for her.  At her best, she used people to get what she wanted.  At her worst, she attempted to throw away her own life.  In that moment, she called out to God to help her to care about something.  The next night, she dreamt about her father.  He told her that he wanted to see her again, to hug her and wipe away her tears like he had when she was just a little girl.  He knew that she wanted to see him again too, but she needed to take care of herself.  After that, she stopped doing the things that she was doing as much.  She reached out to old friends, and she managed to salvage some relationships, she reached out to family, and there was a little healing there too.  But after a little while, she saw herself heading back down that same road.  Afraid that she might be successful at completely screwing up her life for good, she cried out for help.  She asked God to reveal to her the consequences of living in darkness.  And she watched.  With her eyes now open, she saw how messed up the people in her life were.  She saw things on the news, heard stories from people, things that she had known to be true but hadn’t paid any attention to before.  She started going to church again, and working on her relationship with God.  After so long, she stopped seeing so much of the hurting.  But she needed that, didn’t she?  To stay on the right path.  To stay close to God.  God told her that He had removed her sin as far as the east is from the west.  SO??  That doesn’t mean that she couldn’t turn back to darkness.  So she started to research.  If she heard about someone who had died, she had to know every detail of their life.  If she heard of someone who was wronged, she had to know all about it.  Car accidents?  People losing their jobs?  Losing their children?  Getting e. coli?  She could tell you everything that could hurt you and defeat you. 

I stopped here…and this is where things got interesting.  I started to laugh.  And I couldn’t stop.  I laughed and laughed and laughed.  A laugh that was not mine- goofy, hooting, uncontrollable laughing.  Laughing until my stomach hurt and I almost peed my pants!  And I still couldn’t stop!  I went to get tissues…while laughing… and came downstairs, still laughing, with a vision that God had given me.  While laughing, I tell them that God showed me a football field.  I wasn’t on the team.  But there he put me, on the 50 yard line, pointed towards the end zone, with a ball.  I started to walk forward, but out of nowhere I turned around and ran the other way!  I laughed for another 20 minutes or so, and Bethany said that she had secretly been praying for more.

Once I could finally breathe, I announced, as if no one had any idea what had just happened, that I had been delivered of my fear.

  
Sean says “Does this mean you aren’t going to wake me up in the middle of the night to check the entire house anymore?  And I won’t get any more calls about someone on the road that’s following you?”

  
I have no idea…but someone who would do that suddenly sounds crazy to me!

 

“Out of my distress I called on the Lord, and the Lord answered me and set me free.  The Lord is on my side, I will not fear.  What can man do to me?  The Lord is on my side as my helper; I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.  It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.  It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.”  Psalm 118:5-9

 

 

MORE, LORD!!!!!