This
morning, after my son had pulled out of his parking spot and drove off to work
at the ungodly hour of 5:30 AM, I remained standing outside on our tiny front
steps, staring up at the moon.
Even though he is almost 21, I still walk out with him, under the various
guises of hanging up our decorative front porch flag, taking some early morning
pics, or putting out the garbage and making sure the front door is locked. Sadly,
over the past few years, our neighborhood seems to have become home to some
pretty unsavory and even dangerous characters, and we’ve come to know the township
police officers here on a first-name basis.
I heard a
noise near our alley, and felt a chill hit me that didn’t come from the frigid morning
temperatures. Literally frozen with fear, I couldn’t move. I held my breath and waited. Nothing happened. No
one appeared.
Breathing out a sigh of relief, I glanced back up in the sky towards the moon, which looked to be fighting to be seen amid some clouds and the tree branches, and this verse suddenly came to mind:
In this
life, we never seem to run out of things to fear, do we? Whether due to bad, past
experiences (our own or even someone else’s), or because of future unknowns/uncertainties, all of us have a fear factor.
We don't like to admit it, but we're all afraid of SOMETHING.
And, for the most part, not all of us are afraid of the same things.
Some people are
afraid of heights (that would be me)
Some are
afraid of insects or big dogs or bats (oh my!)
Other folks
are afraid of flying, of driving in snowy/icy weather or across bridges, or of public speaking (me once again)
And still others
are afraid of the dark or of thunderstorms
At times, it may feel as if our fears, much like the bare, spidery tree branches in the
photo above, are reaching up, entangling us and choking the light and life right
out of us.
In the midst
of moments or even seasons that appear to be or truly are dark and fearful, we may think "what to
do?", as a friend’s son used to say when he was very small.
The only thing you CAN
do when you’re afraid: put your trust in God.
Some time
ago, not long after I was handed my breast cancer diagnosis and just before I was
about to be wheeled into surgery because of it, I was handed something else. Psalm 56:3
“When I am afraid, I will trust in You.”
Being a
still-wet-behind-the-ears follower of Jesus and pretty much new to Scripture
PERIOD (let alone its memorization), I had never heard of this verse. But, like a drowning woman, I
grabbed onto it like the lifeline that it was for me (and still is), and held on for dear life!
I repeated
it over and over in my head as my journey to the operating room took an unexpected detour to a ‘holding room,’ because the results of an earlier, routine (but
obviously pretty important) pre-admission test had not come back yet.
I whispered
the verse out loud again and again as medical personnel scurried around me,
checking my vitals, making frantic phone calls to
the lab for those missing in action test results, and doing their best to reassure me that everything would be fine.
“When I am afraid, I will trust in You.”
But this
verse REALLY hit home once I was finally brought into the blindingly bright and
starkly sterile operating room as several folks from the surgical team lifted
me off the gurney and placed me onto the
hard, bare operating table, while two others each grabbed an arm of mine and
stretched them out to insert more tubes
and attach more wires.
It was a frightening
moment for me, and a somewhat bizarre thought wormed its way into my brain. I wondered if Jesus
had felt that same sickening fear overtake and overwhelm Him as the Roman
soldiers stretched His arms out onto the cross? Could the Father have impressed
these very words from the Psalms upon Jesus during His time of agony in the garden of Gethsemane?
Did He bring them to mind as nails and hammers were poised above His hands and
feet?
Did KNOWING that He could COMPLETELY trust in His Abba bring Jesus some measure of
comfort, peace and the strength to endure what was coming at that very moment?
Because they did for me. Those 9 simple words -- “When I am afraid, I will trust in You” -- plus the realization that Jesus could relate to what I was going through (fear), supernaturally brought me to a place of peace, comfort and the strength to endure what was coming, at the same time removing that fear factor.
And just for the record: although it sounds absolutely unthinkable, outrageous, and even sacrilegious for me to compare my circumstance to Jesus’s, please know that is certainly NOT my intent here. I merely wish to share my thoughts from the moments before my surgery, and to point out that IF that small portion of Scripture had indeed invaded Jesus's thoughts that long ago Friday afternoon, I HAVE TO believe that He surely must have benefited from it as well.
I deposited that
verse, securely and permanently, into my heart that day, carrying it with me as I headed off to surgery. I continued to carry it into the second surgery that came along 6 months later. It remained there through the
upcoming, draining chemo treatments; through the endless, taxing tests and painful procedures that awaited down the road.
And for all
the dark and scary situations and experiences that have confronted-- and continue to confront -- me and my
family since then, it remains my ‘go to’ verse.
Beloved - maybe you’ve
found yourself in the midst of a dark and scary situation right now:
- The loss of a loved one
- or of a job
- or of a home
- The shattering of a marriage
- or of a friendship
- or of a parent/child relationship
- Or your own health or financial crisis
And that
light at the end of the tunnel everyone speaks of? It seems somewhat hazy and not very bright --
if it can be seen at all. That still, small voice of God others remind you to listen for can often barely be heard above the crashing waves and deafening claps of thunder in
your life’s particular storms.
“When I am afraid, I will trust in You.”
Dear one –
may I encourage you and urge you TODAY to grab hold of this verse with both hands? And don't EVER let go. Carry it close to you in the midst of fear and uncertainty; as you walk through the tunnel's darkness and maneuver the raging storms.
Memorize it
Meditate on it
Whisper it
Shout it
Believe it
Own it
It’s not a magical incantation. It’s a powerful statement of faith
and trust in the only One Who can bring you out of darkness, shelter you in life's storms and factor out your fear.
