Today something very interesting happened. As I have shared in the past, I have many fears and those fears cause anxiety. I used to be consumed by those fears so much that I couldn’t really live.
Since I have come to realize that fully surrendering my life to Christ is the only way to really live life, I have been able to see that fear can be overcome. I know rest in the comfort that if I die or live, God has a reason for everything that happens.
My biggest fear has always been death, in some weird way. I do not exactly fear to die and the afterlife because I know that I will be going to my home in Heaven with the Lord. I just fear how I die. With all this said, today I was caught in a trap of fear.
I unconsciously ate something that I am allergic to, or so I thought. I was finished with my food when my family had realized that some of the condiments for the food had possibly been switched. I immediately thought about my food allergy that has created the biggest fear of my life. When it was discovered that my food allergy was in one of the condiments, I panicked.
All of a sudden a realization came to me: I think I’m dying. I thought about how much I had consumed. It was literally a feeling I cannot begin to express fully. I proceeded to try and focus my attention on the inside of myself to attempt to figure out if something was out of normal. I wanted to be able to understand something. Shortly after that, it was discovered that I had not eaten the one with my food allergy.
I try to always be real with my emotions and feelings but they do not always make sense. This time it made sense. I want to share an excerpt of feelings I was living in that moment…
“Is this the end? Are these people the people I will see for the last time? What is it going to feel like when I start to die? I feel fine right now, yet I know what is in me. I have consumed my biggest fear. For so long, I have done a great job avoiding it and not really worrying about what I ate because I check everything. I don’t eat things on purpose….”
Then I began to shake and the shakes turned extreme. I was shaking so hard that our car was moving. Fear had called upon the aide of anxiety to come to make me feel worse.
As if on cue, a song on a Christian radio station started playing. I can’t tell you what song it was because I do not know. Something about the words just comforted me so much that the shakes began to calm. I looked out the window at the world.
All of a sudden, I was not afraid. I was thinking about how wonderful it would be to go live with the Lord. For the first time, I was completely and utterly okay with dying. I had no fear, just peace.
I wrote a post a few weeks ago about wanting Christ more than anything in this world. Today, that seemed so relevant!
Needless to say, by the grace of God, I was able to overcome fear. Upon realizing that I was okay, I thanked God for loving me. He was there to comfort me and give me peace.
Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” – Corrie Ten Boom
