Afraid of All the Things: Tornadoes, Cancer, Adoption, and Other Stuff you Need the Gospel For

by Scarlet Hiltibidal

I don’t know if you have ever been afraid of the Bible, but it is a real thing.

The gospel didn’t make me feel loved. It made me feel like a failure.

Whether I became the thing I was longing to be or not, the anxiety didn’t go away. I was still afraid. I was still wondering if I was glittery enough or smart enough or funny enough or safe enough.

Michelle Obama in her memoir also asked often "Am I enough?"

Sometimes believing lies just feels better. We believe a lot of lies that pretend to protect our hearts from the things we fear. It might start with airplane springs, but dishonest hopes can be found everywhere.

There are no lies and no preventative measures that can keep us from pain and suffering. Airplane springs are not a thing. “Safety,” honestly, is not a thing. We’re not safe here, in this broken place. Not a single one of us. But we don’t have to be afraid. I will both lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, Lord, make me live in safety. (Ps. 4:8)

If your identity revolves around a job, or a person, or what your body looks like, or anything other than Jesus, you will continue to live burdened; and you will ultimately compound your fear.

What would it look like to live a life identified entirely by Jesus? No more asking why anyone likes me, but to know that it is Jesus in me that is the draw.

It is so easy to look at scary situations and believe in something that feels safe in place of trusting the Lord. We can so easily walk away from Jesus and toward this pipe dream, this lie of self-reliance, this idea that we can protect ourself and our people from pain.

I wasn’t peaceful, because I wasn’t just running from fear, I was running from God. I was hiding from the problem and the Answer.

We shouldn’t think of our sin OR our successes. Our questions should be Who does God say that I am? What does God say I’m worth? What have I done to deserve His great love?

Amen

You are in trouble until I’m the one thing.” . . . It’s because the opposite of anxiety is single-mindedness, and the opposite of peace is worry, and the counterfeit of peace is a kind of apathy and cynicism, and that counterfeit peace cannot coexist with the tenderness of love and joy and so on. How do you cultivate it? Fairly simple. It says, verse 8 [of Philippians 4], “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, think on these things . . .”

“Our fallen nature craves self-glory. We seek the admiration of others. We love the myth of the superhero because we want to be one. So we want our successes to be known and our failures hidden. And since people who achieve remarkable things earn the favor of others, we are tempted to believe that they earn the favor of God as well. That’s the last thing Paul wants us to believe. Paul knew better than most that it is not human achievements that showcase the grace of God. It is human helplessness.”

being weak and held feels even better than the illusion of “strong.”

Jesus was scared.

your “what if” fear of future uncomfortable-ness or conflict keeps you from being a tool of the Lord.

I've been embracing conflict as a path to deeper relationships this year and man is it uncomfortable! But worth it.

This grace has led me closer and closer to the glass. It’s made His face less dim and less dim each day. And I hope that at my last dying breath, my face is pushed so close to the glass that when I see my Shepherd face-to-face, He’ll look almost just the way I’d always thought He might. I want to know I was looking closely.

He snapped His fingers, and my heart exploded. I couldn’t stop crying.

What blows my mind is how God silenced every fear I had. My love for an orphan I didn’t know and the desire to bring home a daughter was so strong that I didn’t have any brain space for the fears that plagued me before. All the questions and worries that I’d wrestled with in the past were gone instantaneously at the moment of the “God snap.”

She’s a stranger. She’s lived a life. When she should have been fed, she was not. When she should have been held, she was suffering alone. When she should have been rocked and carried and touched, she was left in a crib for so long that her head is, and always will be, misshapen. When she gets handed over, she doesn’t look into your eyes and know that you are about to shelter her and love her and provide for her. She looks past your eyes. She leans away. She hits you in the face. She’s stiff. She’s sad. She’s scared.

The reality of adoption

God gave us this girl. We knew that to be true. And we loved her already. But I spent those first days grieving. I grieved the simpler days of soccer practice and laughing in my home with my healthy, happy girls. I grieved the hopes I had of signing the gospel to Joy, so she could understand and know grace and freedom. I grieved for my plans to see her grow up and thrive. And I was angry at myself for grieving. And angry at myself for being weak. Angry at myself for being afraid. Angry at myself for sinning. Angry. How could I be so stupid? How could I be so proud? How did I think I was doing this with the Lord all those months, and look at me now? Look at how sad I am! Look at how stiff she is when I try to rock her. If I’d really been walking with God, I wouldn’t feel so much fear and sadness right now! I’d be celebrating! Do I know my own heart?? Does the Lord know my heart? Is He going to take care of me?

The Meaning of Marriage, Tim Keller writes, “To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”

Love that doesn’t always feel easy is the kind of love that will stop you in your tracks and change your life. Love like that drives out fear. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear. (1 John 4:18) True love is challenging. It often requires yesses when everything in you wants to scream NO.

My sister-in-law just had her own birthday and my husband asked her if she felt old. Her answer was beautiful. She answered, not like a child who doesn’t yet know that death is real, but like a child of God who knows that death isn’t final. She said, “I’m going to live forever. How can I feel old?”