No, really…a goat broke my nose.
However, it’s not like it happened yesterday in Africa. It was back in Oklahoma nine years ago.
My parents had decided to purchase 30 acres and start a farm my senior year of high school. Being a moody, know-it-all teenager, I was less than thrilled about the idea. We bought horses, cows, miniature donkeys, chickens, turkeys, guineas and a mule. A few months later, there was the fateful purchase of a few pygmy goats at a livestock auction.
One day, my uncle came in the house and told my mom and I to help him catch Billy, the male goat with the most creative name you ever did hear, who had escaped from his pen. I begrudgingly obeyed. We chased Billy and cornered him. He jumped on top of a propane tank and was eye-level with me. Just as my uncle was going to slip a rope around Billy’s neck, he jumped…right at me…right at my face. I doubled over in excruciating pain. At first, the impact made me think that my neck was re-fractured from the car wreck that had happened just four months prior. Then, all I could see was blood and I thought I’d lost an eye or at least some of my vision. Everyone was asking if I was okay, but I couldn’t muster a response.
We went to the emergency room and I bled through towel after towel that was held to my face in the waiting room. They called the name of the man sitting across from me and he insisted I go first. They cleaned up the blood and cleared away the cartilage that had pierced through my skin just a centimeter from my left eye. My nose was more aligned with my left eye than the center of my forehead so when my little sister visited me in the ER, it only seemed natural that she would say I looked like the monster from The Goonies. (No worries – I said the same thing to her when she was in a car accident a few months later. Oh sisterly love!)
I had surgery a week or so later after the swelling went down and ever since had a not-so-irrational fear of GOATS. I would squirm, squeal and shudder at the sight of goats on the side of the road or even on a television screen. Goats made my heart race, my breathing irregular and my skin crawl. It was kindof ridiculous actually.
In Nicaragua, the Lord placed it on my heart to lead my team in a devotional about confronting our fears. It was centered on this truth:
“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 5:18
The team shared our fears with one another and gave them over to God. We asked Him to let His perfect love so invade our hearts that there would be no room left for fear. I asked the Lord to remove my fear of goats. I believed that the One who is in me was greater than the one who is in the world. I decided to stop letting Satan have this foothold, as silly as it may sound. He had stolen my joy for far too long and I was ready to be done with it because fear is not of the Lord.
“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” – 2 Timothy 1:7
That was five months ago in Nicaragua….then we came to Africa, the land where goats are plentiful. I knew to expect lots of goats here because Jay’s first pet was a goat when he was growing up in Kenya. The first night we arrived in Uganda before taking a bus to Rwanda, I shared a sidewalk with a goat…and I didn’t freak out. I didn’t squirm. I didn’t squeal. I didn’t shudder.
Why? …because Heaven says I’m an overcomer, Heaven says I’m more than a conqueror, Heaven says that perfect love casts out fear.
What are you afraid of? What is stealing your joy? What makes you squirm, squeal or shudder? What do you need to submit to the Lord?
There is freedom waiting on the other side because Heaven says you, too, are more than a conqueror.
“…we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” – Romans 8:37
Jenn Dannelley
