All the bad things

Fear does interesting things to people.

I don’t think I have to elaborate for you to know exactly what I’m talking about. Our lives are filled with reasons to be afraid–not just right now, but always. Though we seem, at this moment in history, to be in a season when fear is taking hold in bigger sweeps.

I am, and have always been, a fearful person. My imagination tends to run away with my thoughts and hold them hostage in the dark aloneness of night. As a child, I struggled some nights to sleep, because the shadows conjured thoughts of lurking beasts, abduction and abandonment, and what small traumas I had experienced at that point in my small life. Fear would take hold of me. I would awake with sobs from nightmares whose realness crossed the border from dreams to waking.

Many times after such night terrors I would turn on the light in my room. Familiar colors and shapes comforted me. Sometimes I would creep into my parents’ bedroom, just to hear their breathing and know they were still alive, their presence a protective force around me. My mother would come and sing me the words to Psalm 23 when I called out from my bed in panic. I slept with the blanket she’d made me as a baby until I moved away to college–and whenever it was in the laundry I couldn’t force myself to sleep.

I’d read stories that would anchor me to reality–stories so fantastical they could never be real, like The BFG, or so real they brought me out of the imaginary darkness, like Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Stories that brought me hope, that even those seemingly small and powerless could overcome darkness. And, many times, a book of Garfield comics–in fact, I perused its pages so often I could recite each comic from memory.

Strange to think how I spend so many of my formative hours huddled in my blankets, surrounded by loving teddy bears, warding off the evil I feared so much with the words of people I had never met. Maybe that is partly the reason why, for so many years, I’ve found comfort and delight in being surrounded by books, why every surface in our apartment is laden with stories, why it feels wrong to me when I enter someone else’s home and there’s not a book in sight. It’s certainly at least part of the reason why I now feel compelled to share my own words, my own stories, with the world.

As I got older, my fears turned to other things, things more real and sometimes scarier. In high school I began to hunt through the Bible for words of comfort, courage, and peace, and I stuck them on sticky notes to my door. In the middle of the night I would recite these verses to myself. Something in me understood the power of words, without being able to explain it–that these words, these truths, when uttered into the darkness, bring light and life and hope.

Since that time, have I experienced fear? Definitely. Many times. But all the while I knew that God had me, that He was and is bigger than any of my fears, and He never leaves His children. That assurance is my strength, my courage. It shields me from the lie of darkness. I call on Him in my fear, and He holds me in His arms, singing words of comfort to me.

This past weekend was Easter weekend, and to some that didn’t really matter and never has, but for those of us who call Jesus our Savior, the weeks leading up to this joyous day have been filled with the unfamiliar and uncomfortable–change, and certainly loneliness. And fear. The fear is real right now, for many of us.

But I am not afraid–with Christ as my assurance, fear can’t hold me anymore. Because on Easter morning, Jesus defeated fear. He defeated evil, and darkness, and death. He rose from the grave in glorious triumph, and we can be risen alongside Him, never again to be conquered–instead, through Him, made conquerers of all the bad things.

Psalm 91:

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

Surely he will save you
    from the fowler’s snare
    and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
You will not fear the terror of night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
    nor the plague that destroys at midday.
A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
You will only observe with your eyes
    and see the punishment of the wicked.

If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
    and you make the Most High your dwelling,
no harm will overtake you,
    no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
    you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
    I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call on me, and I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble,
    I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”