Category Archives: Fear

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Does your life demand more than you can possibly give?

I walked around my house chanting, “I am braver than I think.  I am braver than I think.”  I didn’t feel brave, but I was trying to convince myself that I was.  My heart was in my throat, and I felt sure that I was going to have a panic attack. My 18 year old son wanted to drive to a friend’s house for the first time.  The friend’s house was on a busy city street that was near “the projects” on the other side of the railroad tracks. And it was dark outside.  I was desperately trying to be brave, but all I could envision was him being lost in the city in the dark in the projects.  I was an emotional mess.

trust

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Jesus would rather have you wavering on the water than staying in the boat

“In Jesus Name, Amen.”  I came down from the stage, took off the headset microphone, and breathed a sigh of relief.  I had just completed teaching the first week of an 8 week Bible study.  I had expected to teach to a crowd of around 40 people,and around 80 showed up.  The teaching had gone SO WELL and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. I should be on cloud 9, right?  Instead, I was an emotional mess.

That night, I could not sleep. I could see the room full of people.  I heard the words I had spoken over and over.  My insecure self, that Lisa that I have been trying to banish for 44 years, questioned everything that I said and did and made note of all of my mistakes.  Why did I say THAT?  What are people thinking about me?  And what was I thinking, agreeing to teach an 8 week Bible study?  Clearly I was NOT thinking.  My stomach was a ball of nerves as I considered being on that stage again, seven more times, in front of all of those people.

waveringAAAAHHHH! What was I thinking?

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Keeping my peace in the Christmas Chaos

Worry is imaging the future without God

Guilt. Shame. Worry. We all struggle with something. I’ve been walking with God for over 20 years, and these are some of the things that I still struggle with. But worry is my vice. I think of the book Pride and Prejudice, where Mr. Bennett says that Mrs. Bennet’s nerves have been his “constant companion these twenty years.” For me, fear and worry have been my constant companions for my 44 years.

There is one area of fear and worry that has stuck around as I have grown and matured. It comes around once a year, right after Thanksgiving. It is the fear of shopping in the month of December.  It is the fear of leaving my home on Saturdays in December, or going out AT ALL the week of Christmas. Especially Christmas Eve, when throngs of people are doing last minute shopping and are clogging up parking lots and roads. My heart beat is speeding up just thinking about it!

Shopping

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Reluctantly confronting my Facebook fears

Facebook and I have had a rocky relationship which can be described as me shunning and abhorring Facebook. For those of you who were willing and eager to join Facebook, that may be hard for you to understand. I am a reluctant and unenthusiastic Facebooker. I joined two days ago, kicking and screaming.

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