Category: Fear Page 1 of 3

People Pleasing is a Shapeshifter

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On September 23, 2022

In Fear, What I'm Learning

Several years ago, it dawned on me that I was no longer obsessed with other people’s approval.

I had grown strong enough in my identity as an image-bearer of God that I no longer craved constant affirmation. Of course, it was still nice when I got it, but I didn’t need it to validate my worth. I had attained the unattainable: I was no longer a People Pleaser. It felt freeing. I must be a pretty mature Christian. To God be the glory and all that good stuff. 

I did have a nagging problem though. From time to time, I found myself consumed with worries about how I might have offended or hurt someone. My brain has the knack of remembering exact conversations, some of which went back ten or twenty years.

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All Night, Wrestling

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On September 2, 2022

In Fear

Some nights I am Jacob, wrestling with God. 

On the edge of fear and despair, at the end of himself, alone, desperate, he realizes the shadowy figure he is wrestling with is God Himself. I feel Jacob’s desperation: I won’t let you go unless you bless me! 

Such a strange story, yet I peer into it and see my reflection. I lay awake for hours, blood raging, pounding on the chest of the One who has the power to act, but isn’t. Why aren’t you doing something? Why aren’t you changing this? How many prayers do I have to pray before something happens? 

Enough is enough. A God with power wouldn’t allow this injustice to continue. A God who cares would take this burden off my friend. A God who sees would heal that wound in my child.

The unanswered prayers linger large in the room, their weight keeping me awake. I threaten God: Answer! If you don’t come through on this one, it will weaken my faith. And it will be your fault. 

Somebody on Twitter wrote something like, “Am I depressed or just having an appropriate response to all the horrible things happening in the world?” If I knew the person who tweeted that, I would give her a fist bump. If I was the sort of person who gave fist bumps. 

I watch those tossing their faith over their shoulder and think about how easy that seems. What if I chose not to believe anymore? To give up on prayers, to take the darkness at face value? I gingerly pick up the idea, hold it at arm’s length, examine it from all angles. What is the point of this wrestling? Wouldn’t it be easier just to give in, walk away? 

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Two Stones In My Pocket

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On May 6, 2022

In Fear, Parenting

It’s practically a miracle that I got married. 

As a young person, I was colder than Elsa to guys my age. I avoided talking to them at all costs, and when I was forced to, I used sarcasm. In high school, one guy told me that I made him cry and another rebuked me for being mean. These interactions have been embedded in my memory for 30 years because I remember how stunned I was to hear them. In my head, I was a nice person. I never set out to be a jerk. 

My harshness was not for lack of attraction; I had as many crushes as the boy-crazy flirt. I was simply terrified of people. I was not timid; I loved being on stage and performing when I had a script telling me exactly what to say at exactly the right moment. Real life gave me no such script.

I gained confidence in college, though even Gil remembers that my first interaction with him was intentionally distant. So it is pretty miraculous that I figured out how to be friendly enough for him to fall in love with me. 

I now recognize that my reticence was very much connected to insecurity. Around people my age, I was easily intimidated, and I felt young and insignificant. I was too proud to be nervous and groveling, so it was easier to be cold and sarcastic.  

G.K. Chesterton wrote, “It is always the secure who are humble.” My insecurity made me unkind, anxious, unfriendly. As I’ve aged, I see in myself the link between growing more secure and how well I love others.

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This American High

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On March 7, 2022

In Eternity, Fear, Living Like a Missionary

When I was a girl, my most prized possession was my sticker collection. Around age 10, Mom took me to a craft boutique, and I clearly remember the moment I laid my eyes on the most perfect sticker book ever: A photo album with a pink hand-sewn cover, hearts embroidered on top. 

My Gram snuck stickers into birthday cards. I peeled every sticker off A+ quizzes. “Trading stickers” was my favorite friend activity, and I relished carefully placing each sticker in that perfect album, gazing upon their colorful, sublime wonder over and over again.

I lay in bed, worrying about fires and thieves and tidal waves, and knew confidently what item I would save first: that sticker book.

A couple of weeks ago, my parents dug out my boxes of childhood treasures from the depths of their garage and brought them to my house. Lo and behold, there was my sticker book.

I look disdainfully at the object of my childhood adoration and see it for what it really is: a book of sticky paper, now browning around the edges. Thirty-five years offer a great deal of perspective.

Last week journalist Mindy Belz tweeted, “Pentecostal leader in Moldova writes of daughter and her family vacating their apartment and moving in with him so Ukrainian refugees can live in her place.”

Would I be willing to do that?

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Does God Want Us to Fight For Our Freedom?

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On February 16, 2022

In Fear, How Americans Think, Living Like a Missionary

Early in our marriage, Gil casually mentioned that he wasn’t sure he would have been on the side of the Patriots in the Revolutionary War.

I wondered if I had married some kind of Benedict Arnold. Movies, songs, and Christian school ingrained in me that Patriots were on God’s side – they were the good guys, the heroes. The Loyalists were filthy rotten traitors who had no right to call themselves American, let alone Christian. 

But Gil has always been one to question the status quo; it drives me crazy, but that’s part of why I fell in love with him. He explained that he is deeply grateful for American freedoms, and he is not necessarily a pacifist. He simply doesn’t know if “taxation without representation” was a biblical reason to go to war.

That’s my Gil; he always has to bring the Bible into it. I wish it was easier to ignore him. 

(If you’re wondering if I am heading into the realm of crazy talk, please, don’t deport me yet. Hang in there with me.)

I sense a pervasive worldview among Americans: God wants us to fight for our freedom. Let your memory roll through American history – the wars, the invasions, the protests, the marches. Americans believe that fighting for freedom is a God-ordained right….even a responsibility.

But is this biblical truth?  

Ironically, first-century Jews expected Jesus to be their George Washington, leading them in their own Revolutionary War. The oppression they experienced under Rome went far beyond unfair taxation. Jesus’ disciples waited with bated breath for the moment when he would call them to arms to overpower the Romans. 

Except, he never did.  

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