Fear. Fear is a funny thing. Fear can resemble so many different fearful things. It can embody thinking you are letting people down, thinking you’re not enough, physical things, emotions, thinking you aren’t talented, or that you aren’t smart enough to get into college. These are all examples of fear and I feel that I embody all of them, but it certainly does not define me. It is a normal thing to feel, but fear is just Satan trying to rip you apart and show you a false side of yourself. God has a real image of who you are and that is your true self.
I experienced this thing called fear on February 10, Sunday, bright and early in the morning. I had been dealing with some bad dreams the night before and woke up a couple times and prayed over the room and myself. I laid back down and went right to sleep and thought it was all over. Boy was I completely wrong. That morning I just woke up in a weird state and just felt like something was off, but of course I didn’t know what that actually was.
So to rewind a little bit, the night before when everyone was showering and getting ready for bed my fear of spiders came up. My leader and one of my teammates kept saying that I had come so far because I was living in close quarters with spiders being on the ceiling and showering next to a bunch of them every night. I kept telling them that they were small and I had just gotten used to them because they didn’t really move, so I was okay and just would forget they were there.
Back to the morning spook. Kate, one of my teammates, comes and stands right in front me. I am sitting down on my bed pulling clothes out for church that morning. She says, “I don’t want you to see this”. As soon as she said that I just knew there was a spider in the bathroom and not just a small one that I am now used to or a daddy long leg, no I knew it was a big one that I was not going to like. My first instinct was to cover my ears and shut my eyes tight, so that is exactly what I did. I told myself to go to my happy place and I would be just fine, but by then I had already let satan into my thoughts. Feeling vulnerable already, I tried to stop the tears from flowing down my face but as soon as I felt tears brimming my eyes I just let go. I felt like I was being attacked by satan from all sides, tapping into all of my insecurities and tearing me apart. That is when I really felt the Lord fighting back with me by using one of my teammates, Steph, to comfort me and tell me it was okay not to be okay. She sat down next to me and just laid a comforting hand on me. I felt all the emotions flood out of me instead of bottling them up like I normally do. She didn’t leave my side once through out the whole panic attack and later handed me head phones. I immediately took them with such gratitude and it was exactly what I needed. I honestly did not even register the words that were playing in my ears until I heard, “you’re never gonna let, you’re never gonna let me down” on repeat. I took those words to heart and really started understanding what that meant. That is when one of my teammates, Kate, went and got on of the boys from the orphanage we stay at to come deal with the spider. All I could think about in that moment was how I just wanted it gone. It being fear is what I realized I was really struggling with. As the boy took the spider/fear out of the room Steph/God added another layer of hands over my eyes and “protected” me while, “cause you are good, you’re good” repeated in my ears. I interpreted this in two different perspectives. The first was me singing you are good to God and the second was God singing it back to me. He was reminding me that I am good and in His hands and fear cannot shake me with Him by my side. After I settled down I reluctantly opened my eyes to see my team telling me and showing me with their eyes that I was okay. I tend to want to seem strong on the outside and not be or act weak. Sometimes I think everyone thinks I am full of it and faking what I feel. I feel I am a burden to others with all my problems and that nobody actually believes me. In my worst moment today satan spoke lies into me. I am unworthy to this team, I am weak, I am not good enough, I do not have what it takes to stay here, but yet for a split second I actually believed his words. Now what I believe is I am part of this team and God brought all of us together for a reason, I am not weak I am just vulnerable and open, I am enough for myself, the team, and the Lord, I do have what it takes to stay here, these are real feelings and no one actually believes I am faking my feelings and reactions, and I am loved by this team, my family and friends, and by God. This is one of the most vulnerable moments I have been with myself and I have a whole family of woman to lean on for support. I am good, I am okay, the Lord is with me.
This is a vulnerable moment I wanted to share with you all to explain that this trip is not all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns, but that is okay. This is an amazing opportunity for me to learn more about myself while serving God. I am facing my fears and stepping out of comfortability and while that is scary at times, I have really learned to accept it and love the challenges. I hope this moment of vulnerability encourages you to do the same and step out into the unknown. It will be scary and you will want to quit, but stick with it and you will get so much out of it.
Thank you so much for the support and I hope you enjoyed reading this!
With love,
Alyse
P.S. – please enjoy this picture of the big, scary spider mentioned in this blog.
