Fear.
It grips you.
It feels like someone taking ahold of your throat and squeezing it just enough to where you can barely breathe.
It feels like someone grabbing your heart and throwing it against a wall.
It feels like you laying on the floor and someone standing on your chest.
It feels like every bad thing that could ever happen playing like a slideshow in your mind.
It feels like you trying to run ahead and someone from behind wrapping their arms around you right before you take off.
Eyes wide. Heart pounding. Gut wrenching.
Fear.
Why do you have so much power in my life?
Why do I give you so much power in my life?
Why do you grip me so tightly?
Why do you take ahold of my throat and squeeze it just enough so I can barely breathe?
Why do you grab my heart and show it no mercy?
Why do you stand so heavy on my chest as I lay on the ground helpless?
Why do you play every bad thing that could ever happen on repeat in my head?
Why do you wrap your enclosing arms around me before I go?
You linger in the background.
You are always there ready at the attack.
You’re like a rat in his hole waiting for the right time to come out.
When freedom calls my name, so do you.
Your voice is so LOUD.
It never stops shouting at me.
And where there is more freedom, the louder you are.
Because you don’t want me to be free.
YOU want to be my god.
YOU want to reign in my life.
YOU want to tell me what to do and what not to do.
YOU want my full time and attention.
YOU want my all.
YOU want to tell me who I am.
But thankfully there is someone who wants the same things from me.
But he doesn’t take, he gives.
He doesn’t scream at me, he quietly whispers to the depths of my soul.
His arms are not enclosing, they are welcoming.
He loves me, unlike you do.
Although you may be beckoning to me, you don’t get to tell me what to do.
What to say.
How to live.
JESUS does.
Because HE is more powerful than you. Not me.
And there may be days where you win.
But EVERYDAY Jesus is victorious over you.
And so am I.
Fear and anxiety. I struggle with it. ALOT. More than I think I even realized until the Lord brought it to my attention about a month ago. And now that it is in the open and I am actively seeking the Lord on it, I am ever more aware of how much it has had a say in my life. It sucks. Not gonna sugar coat it.
Guys I am gonna be honest, being vulnerable is hard. I believe it is one of my strengths, but it never gets easier. It takes just as much humility every time to pour out my heart and be gut-wrenching honest. It is really hard to look at fear in the face and tell it it has no power over me.
But thankfully I don’t have to do it alone. Jesus already defeated the fear in my life; I just have to walk in his victory over it. Do I know how to? I’m getting there step by step. There are good days, and there are days where it just will not let me go. BUT Jesus has been teaching me alot about H O P E. How we do not hope in what we see, because it wouldn’t really be hope. But how we hope in the things that we do not see, and wait for it patiently. (Romans 8: 24-25)
I can hope that Jesus will keep his promises. That he will never leave me. That even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil because he is with me. (Psalm 23:4) That there is healing on the other side of it. A really good friend of mine told me that revelation means healing is coming. I can hope that Jesus will heal me after revealing all the fear in my life. I can hope that Jesus is who he says he is; that he is faithful, that he is good, and that he is my Protector and my Defender.
And I can hope that because he is who he says he is, I am who he says I am; beloved, his, daughter.
So yeah, there’s my heart for you. Here is me declaring that I have struggles and I walk through hard things. That fear is really heavy in my life, but that it doesn’t have a hold over me. That I will continually choose Jesus and choose to believe what he says.
That I will choose to walk in the freedom he promises me.
Thank you for reading. I hope this helped someone today to let them know that they are not alone. None of you are.
-Kyla Cal
