Handing it over

I mentioned in my last post that sometimes I'm afraid to greet people because I fear their tepid response.

Well, guess what, folks? I have discovered that I have a problem with fear.

In a recent convention, I had a chance to share a few of these thoughts in a testimony, but I want to expand them slightly here.

I never really thought of myself as a fearful person. I'm pretty laid-back, right? Uhuh. Well, as I look back over my life, I can see that I am fearfully wrong. I've had my battles just like everybody else; I just might be naturally weaker than some. But, alhamdulallah! Praise be to God! He has shown me three practical things to help me out.

He showed me the first one when I was about seven years old. I had to go to the dentist to have my teeth pulled. My parents were smart enough to not tell me about it until the night before, but naturally I was terrified. Yet my dad gave me a verse to think about:

"When I am afraid, I will put my trust in God." Psalm 56:3

Lying in the dentist chair with the flavor of cherry novocaine leaking out in my saliva, I closed my eyes and thought of those words.

When I am afraid, I will put my trust in God.

When I am afraid, I will put my trust in God.

When I am afraid . . . . trust in God.

I blocked out the eery reflection of my mouth in the overhead light. Those words were all I had to hold on to.

"Are you all right?" the dentist asked.

Of course I was.

Twelve years later, I sat on a porch breathing those same words. Blood was everywhere--on the porch, on my shoes, down my legs, on my shirt, and in my braids. I kept spitting up blood into a plastic cup extending through the darkness as the world grew murky around me and I hoped I wouldn't pass out. My family seemed far away, and everyone around me was a stranger.

When I am afraid, I will put my trust in God.

That verse is the first thing that gave me strength when I had to face my fears. I have had very few accidents in my life and only a few tragedies. I used to always wonder how I would respond if I ever faced an accident like the summer I broke my nose and saw more blood than I've ever seen in my life. In fact, I was scared by the prospect. Would I burst at the seams? Would I get hysterical? Lose my faith?

Nope.

I may yet face unknown trials. But I know now that when I'm staring down cold panic in the face, remembering that verse has been my knee-jerk reaction. I no longer fear such experiences.

Secondly, sometimes I'm fearful when I think about volcanoes that I must traverse.

"Um, how can I handle this, Lord?"

"What about that course that has been known to make grown men cry?"

And through it all, He has reminded me, "I won't give you anything that you and I together can't handle."

I rarely fear those daunting experiences anymore. If I know that God has called me to this mountain, it will become a plain. Even if we have to soak the rocky path with our tears all the way up and down it.

I started learning the third lesson when I was about fifteen years old. When I was a kid, I had a huge fear of getting sick--particularly at inconvenient moments, like girls camp week. Oh what horrors! I could get sick any week of the year except that one!

Of course, I did get sick that week. I would be perfectly healthy for most of the year, but when girls' camp week came around, I got sick. I was sick for about three of the five weeks I went to through the years.

I still remember the second time. A lot of people from my community got the stomach bug that week, but since I was the only one from the community at camp in Rhode Island, I was the only one there who got it.

I remember telling Katie quite calmly at 7 a.m. that I had thrown up, "But I am better now." She laughed at me.

I remember pushing my way through a gaggle of girls eating taco salad. They kindly asked me if I was feeling better, but I couldn't answer them. I needed to kneel by that leaky toilet so I could throw up again.

And I remember lying on a mattress in a room all alone as all of the girls went to Boston without me. And then, at fifteen years old, I had a difficult conversation with God.

The end of it is that I realized that I needed to hand my health over to Him. I was too jealous of it, and I kept bungling it.

I remember going to a home school convention and hearing a dad talk about something he told his kids:

"Now you take care of those teeth! Those teeth are mine--I pay for them! So you better do a good job of taking care of my teeth!"

The analogy is unclear, but I decided that if I gave my health over to God, then it would be His problem to take care of it.

So I did.

I have never really been afraid of getting sick since.

And through the years, I've realized that giving up things I'm afraid about doesn't just apply to sickness. It applies to a lot of other things too. And one by one, I've been handing these things over: money, dreams, and whatever else. Of course, it would be simpler to just hand God everything and be done with it, but sometimes that's too much for us to comprehend. God demands our all, and I have given it. But sometimes it takes years before we come to realize exactly what that looks like. But like a father persuading a kid to hand over each crummy toy, He reminds us, one dingy teddy bear at a time.

Quite recently, I came face to face with a fear I never knew I had: the fear of rejection.

Why else am I afraid to greet someone when I don't know how they will respond?

It's a small manifestation of a very big thorn.

As I was praying about this fear and thinking about what God has taught me about yielding, I tried to figure out what "thing" I needed to give up in order to deal with this fear for good. If handing over my health cured me from a fear of getting sick, what could cure a fear of rejection?

Then I had it.

I needed to hand over myself. Because if I am wholly and irrevocably God's, what does it matter if people reject me? I belong to Someone else. Rejection becomes His problem, not mine.

Let's give ourselves completely over.