This is the final week of January 2023 on the Blog.

All month long we have been talking about RESILIENCE!

This week brings me to my most difficult challenge in being RESILIENT.

FEAR!

What are you afraid of?

Does the fear of heights paralyze you?

Does the fear of spiders or snakes make you cringe and run the other way?

Does the fear of speaking in public make you feel like you’re the one in your underwear?

While I wouldn’t jump at the chance to walk across a suspension bridge between two tall mountain peaks, heights is not a great fear I have.

And even though I do not love snakes, I have squashed many a spider in my days for my son who is very much fearful of them. 

And while I do get butterflies in my stomach and can’t eat before I speak in public, when God gives me a word to say, He has given me the ability to speak it!

But I do have a fear I struggle with. It has been a struggle for me since I was a very young child! I always thought that I would outgrow it. I have taken it to God over and over and over again, yet it still remains a very real fear for me.

I am afraid of the dark and I hate being alone!

There, I said it. It is not easy for me to admit this fear! Much of the time I am shamed with it by the fact that it is more commonly a fear children have. But for me, it is a very real fear!

Rick Warren says,

“The revealing of feelings is the beginning of healing.”

This week as I was facing writing my final blog on RESILIENCE, I was challenged to face my greatest fear.

I don’t know about you, but it never fails for me that when I am on a mountaintop experience with God, I soon come plummeting back down to the valley!

I was blessed two weeks ago to be able to not only visit all of my children and grandchildren, but to also attend a wonderful women’s conference with my daughter and my best friend! It doesn’t get better than that, right?

But that very night, as I called my husband back home to share what a wonderful experience the conference had been, he gently broke the news to me that I would soon have to stay alone by myself overnight at home.

When I use the term, “break it to me,“ I mean, break it to me gently. He knows my fear full well! He knows that I have struggled with it and have tried and tried to over come it. He was going to be gone at a pastors prayer conference, and I would have to stay overnight at home alone!

My first response was to frantically figure out any way I could get out of spending the night alone.

Could I make a trip back to Southern California? There must be a very good reason! Was there someone, anyone who could stay overnight with me? 

Was there anywhere I could go?

I panicked. Which is the first human response to fear! 

Basically, I did everything I could to run away from it.

But then something happened! God called me to run toward it not away from it.

He spoke very quietly and gently, but clearly, 

“You will not be alone, I will be with you!”

My testimony the next morning is that I stayed in it, I was calm and remained alone with God in a big two-story house with a lot of windows. My praise and glory to God that next morning was that THE FEAR DID NOT OVERTAKE ME!

My God was right there with me! I did not sleep well, it was at two hour intervals, and at 3:30 it took me quite a bit longer to fall back to sleep. But I was calm and I was at peace and my fear did not overtake me! I stayed in it with my God. I was not alone, He was right there with me.

I was tired and I was weary from it, but I felt RESILIENT!

TRUTH BOMB

RESILIENCE COMES WHEN WE PUSH THROUGH OUR FEARS!

The scripture God gave me and always sustains me me through my fears with is,

“God is LIGHT, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”    I John 1:5

I would have loved for God to have worked a miracle in my life and caused me to fall into a deep, deep sleep and wake up the next morning with the sun shining feeling fully refreshed. After all, I serve a God of miracles!

But, I also serve a God who loves me so very much that he wants me to be resilient!

There is no TESTimony, without a TEST. It is through the testing that we become RESILIENT!

Am I looking forward to the next time that I have to be alone? No! But I do know that my God will be right there with me!

And whatever fear you have to face, God will be right there with you too!

Speak Truth Love