Sometimes I am afraid.  How about you?  Fear is certainly one of the experiences just about all of us have in common.  When I tell you, “I’m scared!” you know what I’m talking about.  Most of us have shared some fear in relation to the current global economic recession.  There is the fear of not being able to support our families or meet our financial obligations.  There is even the fear of losing our job or our home.

In my life, I have been afraid of many things:  afraid of the dark, afraid that shots at the doctor’s were going to hurt, afraid I would strike out in baseball, and afraid that my parents were going to die.  And many of the things I was afraid were going to happen have indeed happened.  My fear did not stop the scary events from coming true.  Many of those fears have actually pointed toward my future.

That makes sense when you think about it.  Often, what frightens us most is the future we know is coming.  Fear can paralyze us or it can motivate us.  For example, I was afraid my parents would die and yet I knew that it was inevitably going to happen – someday.  I could live in terror anticipating that loss.  I could deny or suppress my feelings of fear, but either way, I would be no better prepared to face it when the time came.

Or I could take another course.  My fear could prepare me to face that future.  Knowing, for example, that I would someday lose people I love could motivate me to learn from them and be more present with them – slower to be angry or upset with them and quicker to reconcile.  In that way, my fear could lead me to learn and grow and to deepen the relationship.  As a result, the fear could become less debilitating even though the loss would be no less painful.

When we are able to own our fear and then hold it together with our faith, fear can begin to lose its hold on us.  To own our fear means to acknowledge it, articulate it, and let it become real and tangible to us.  To hold it with faith means to step decisively in the direction of what you value most in life – affirming who you are and where you are going.  When we move along the pathway of discovering and living that sense of call – toward engagement that arouses our passion and brings us joy – that action can reveal how shallow our fears often are.

Fear can be problematic in our lives by taking us out of our deepest selves.  But fear is not ultimately the problem.  In fact, fear can be helpful by alerting us to real danger.  So, rather than trying to talk yourself out of feeling afraid, which seldom works anyway, let your fear point you toward your deeper self.  Let it motivate you to let go of the false self you may be borrowing or the people in your life you are just trying to please.  Fear can be a narrow gate onto a winding road that is the journey of life.  We only get through the gate and navigate the road by faith.  It can be a lonely road, but we don’t walk it alone.

Thanks for continuing to bless me as we journey together.
  
Jack Price

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