I have a confession to make.
I’ve been operating out of a spirit of fear, for a while now.
Fear of what you ask?
Fear of everything.
The Lord revealed this to me through my team leader, Courtney… in Honduras… 2 and a half months ago.
But since then, I’ve kinda been sitting in my crap. (Thank you, Megan Rouse)
I’ve been sitting in a fully loaded diaper of fear and complacency refusing to get up and clean myself off.
At my squad’s last debrief, one of my squad leaders asked the group,
“Why are you really here?”
My answer as silly as it sounds was,
“Well, out of fear of what my life would look like if I didn’t go.”
When my team asks me to go places and do things… adventurous type things, I always say…
“I’m already on the World Race, isn’t that enough?”
What a horrible way to live.
Fear sucks.
It came to the point where, if I went on a team outing or if I went swimming in a lake,
I would get comments like…
“You want to go?” or “You did that?”
Being known as the girl who is afraid of everything is not what I want to be known for.
The Lord used a tragic event back home this past weekend to bind these chains of fear and cast them out to the depths of the ocean.
I learned on Monday that a child that had gone to the afterschool program I worked for, had been killed in a motorcycle accident over the weekend. He also went to the school that I student taught at this past spring.
My heart was, and still is aching for his family, my coworkers, my mentor teachers, and the children of the school that have to go through this tragedy.
I was thinking about my time spent with him, and this overwhelming sense of fear came over me.
Thoughts like,
“What if this happens in my classroom, when I become a teacher?”
“What if this happens to someone else while I’m gone?”
“What if this happens to my child one day?”
It was then that the Lord flashed the faces of all the children I’ve had the honor of working with over the past couple years.
All the smiles while we played drop dance.
All the tears that fell while I cleaned up a bleeding knee.
All the laughter from the darnedest things kids say.
The Father gave me rest in my thoughts with these words,
“You loved well.”
He reminded me of the purpose of my life.
To love, and to be loved.
“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:16-18
Whenever my team asks my leader for plans for the coming days, she responds, “I don’t know what I’m having for breakfast tomorrow.”
In reality, we’re not promised another year, day, or minute.
That’s why it’s so important for us to seize each moment and love the crap out of it.
There’s no room for fear.
I have too much lovin’ and livin’ to do.
