Fright or Flight

I’ve been penning this blog in my head for five months now. I guess, in a way, I wanted to make sure it was real. That God actually, miraculously me. But now, as we prepare for our flights to Asia, I write of God’s power excitedly.

Crippling fears used to control my life. For years I let the fear of the unknown, the fear of dying, the fear of rape, kidnapping, or murder, and the fear of plane crashes absolutely rule my life.

On our flights to and from Hawai’i right before the Race, I sat next to my aunt, who was completely calm, while my mind literally pictured the plane going down. She reminded me that she barely felt the bumpy ride, while I decided we’d crash over the ocean at any given second. She related it to our walks with the Lord, how she’s grown to know and trust His character over the years, knowing that He’ll take care of her, and so she’s calm during the bumps along the way. That was my first hint that my intense fear of flying was going to be a big metaphor for life on the Race.

The time I really realized how crazy this lesson was going to be was on our flight from Miami to Quito, Ecuador for Launch Week. The girls told me something like, “Stephanie, don’t freak out. You know God is going to take care of you.” And my immediate response was, “Well, then why did He let my mom die?” It was one of those moments where you shake your head, blink really hard, and pull back, like, “Wait, what just came out of my mouth?” I had no idea how my deep set fears went back to my mother’s death, 12 years prior.

You see, I’m not sure I ever truly grieved my mom’s death. I came to terms with the fact that she’d never be at my graduations and wedding, but I didn’t realize how it affected my view of God’s goodness. I realized on that flight that this year, God wanted to restore my view of Himself.

Fast forward three months. I had lived in fear all of South America. Fear of violence and “the bottom dropping out”, and fear, knowing that I had to get on a plane again soon. Our itinerary from South America to Europe included 5 flights from 6 cities and 3 continents: La Paz, Santa Cruz, Miami, New York, Istanbul, and Tirana. Over 20 hours in the air.

During my time in South America that I had tried with all my heart to never be scared anymore. But I had tried to logically erase my illogical fears. A friend reminded me that sometimes we can only overcome one emotion by replacing it with another emotion. We only have room for one at a time. In my case, it would be replacing fear with love. PERFECT LOVE CASTS OUT ALL FEAR.

(A picture our teammate took on the flight I’m about to talk about…)

As God would have it, on our first flight, I was sitting by strangers for the entire hour, and had no one to calm me down. I had to turn to God. As was tradition by this point, I broke the rules and listened to my iPod during taxi and take-off. I began listening to the song, “How He Loves”, by Jesus Culture.

As we taxied down the runway, I tried to let the words, “How He loves us, oh how He loves us…” sink into my heart. God wasn’t some big scary, impersonal, power in the sky, waiting for me to do something wrong, or letting “the bottom drop out” to teach me a lesson. He desperately, passionately, loves Stephanie Christine Bernotas.

In this version of this song, there is a prayer.

You can listen to the song below. The prayer is about 3/4’s of the way in. She talks about how deeply God loves all of us; how His love is so thick, so unending. And how we all need to experience a true love encounter with Him. And when we do, we’ll be changed, and never be the same again. So we better just brace ourselves, because we’re about to experience a love encounter with Him.

As she was saying, “So you better just BRACE YOURSELF…” the plane took off. God timed it perfectly. As if telling me, plain and simple, that this plane ride would be a love encounter with Him, for which I had to brace myself. And oh, how that flight was a love encounter. I can’t explain it, but God loved on me so well during that hour. Just me and Him, in the sky, trusting Him with my life all over again, letting His love affect the deep recesses of my heart. My fears. My past hurts. My anger at Him for letting my mom die. My fear of flying, which is a giant metaphor for my life. It felt like my heart was blown open, and God finally had the chance to go deep. To heal the depths of my heart. To love on me. To change me permanently. To rid me of fear for good.

I ran off the plane, pulled over all of my friends, and told them how God healed me of my fear of flying, and of fear in general. For the next four flights, I enjoyed looking out the window, didn’t mind flying through a storm, and experienced the freedom and love of God at a whole new level.

Since then, it has been a continual journey of letting God heal me of all my other fears. I no longer have to sleep with windows and doors locked and I no longer “foreshadow” disaster. I know I seem like I was a crazy person, and I sort of was. That’s why any effort from myself or others couldn’t change it. God had to heal me. Sure, like any normal person, in an actually scary situation, I’ll be scared. And no, I don’t go around doing things that are stupid, like wandering alone in the third world. I’m still smart, but I slept in peace in unguarded tents for a month. I fly without a care. I’m healed.

If I had tried to let Him heal me of my fears while I was living in safety, the “healing” would have been surface level. He needed to heal me while I was in the air, in, what was in my mind the most perilous of situations. Where I literally had no control over whether I lived or died. Powerless. Terrified. That was when my heart was ripped open enough for God to enter and heal.

So, like the prayer said, if there’s healing that the Lord needs to do in you, stop striving for that. Let Him bring you in to a love encounter with Him. A love encounter where He gets access to and heals the deep recesses of your hearts. A love encounter where you’re never the same again.