Fears

I finished “Traveling Mercies” last night. That was a good book. It felt sort of like I was reading someone’s blog or diary. It made me want to read more. It made me want to write more. It made me think.

So I went to the little book shelf in my room (where my devotionals and writing books are) and pulled my “The Playful Way to Serious Writing” book (by Roberta Allen) off the shelf and thumbed through its pages. This hasn’t been one of my favorite books, because its push has been toward more fictionalized writing (or that’s my perception).

It was sort of surprising when I landed on the following page: Think of five times in your life when you let fear stop you.

(Background to why this was so interesting to me. A couple days ago, Rev Mommy wrote about what are we afraid to talk about and that started a whole lot of thinking on my part about fear in general. Then tonight at a women’s Bible Study I attended [but probably won’t go back to] one of the questions the leader asked us was whether we were more motivated by love or fear? Then this page. I’m “afraid” that I’m supposed to be addressing my fears.)

…but back to the prompt…

1. (These are in no particular order of time sequence.) The first fear that jumped to my mind was when I was afraid to ask Nelson for the money to get my birth control prescription. Annie was only a few months old and it was time to start thinking about getting back on birth control. Money was so very tight right then. Asking for money has always been an issue for me. I reasoned in my head that it had taken so many years to get pregnant with Annie, surely I could miss a month and not worry. Surely, not. Annie was only 6mo old when I found out I was pregnant with Beth. One of the best mistakes I ever made.

2. I’m a good speaker and a good preacher. I participated in a preaching “contest” the last year of my M.Div program in Kansas City. My fear and lack of confidence caused me to doubt my ability and hold back—after all, why give 100% when it wouldn’t make a difference. Several people commented on how apparent it was that I shut down when I could have shone.

3. Fear of failure is a consistent—or was a consistent theme in my life before October 2001. The only way I knew not to fail was to just keep moving forward, take on more, and prove to everyone I was able to do it all. I lost all semblances of healthy boundaries. I really thought I could be all to everyone. My life was falling apart from the inside out and I was very close to committing suicide because I didn’t know how to stop the insanity. On October 8, 2001 I finally became so afraid of dying that I put an end (stopped) life as I knew and let the pieces fall. It turned out to be the hardest and best thing I ever did.

4. A friend of mine helped me get a job writing. She worked as an editor at a publishing company that was associated with educational materials. I contracted to write a teacher’s manual for a catechism course. I was really excited. I did a lot of research and work around the project, but fear of criticism, rejection, and the editor’s red pen kept from writing the necessary material. They released me from my contract.

5. One of the other questions the leader asked the group tonight (it was just an ice-breaker type game thing) was whether we were rebellious teens? I was quick to answer no. And the reason: fear. I absolutely totally feared disappointing my father. I never knew what it was like to truly sense his approval, so I’m not sure what I was actually working for, but I really, truly didn’t want to disappoint him. That probably wasn’t going to ever be possible since my very presence at birth initiated an endless string of disappointments: I was born a girl.


Now, let me rush in here to say: I’ve really worked hard on this issue. And I’m not nearly as fear-full as I used to be. I’m just very clear that this will be a life issue for me and I work on it day, by day, by day.