Fear.

Sometimes, I try this idea of writing simply to spill thoughts on a page, for love of the written word, using a prompt from various sources. How? I start and end a post in 15 minutes. The professionals, they do five minutes. I do fifteen.And then I share what fifteen minutes gets me. Just fifteen minutes. Unscripted. Unedited. Real.I thank you in advance for enfolding me in your crazy grace.

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Today's Prompt:  FEAR

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I lay next to him in the dark because my presence is still enough to conquer his fears.  I’m squeezed next to his tiny body on a twin-sized bed that swallows his frame and I think how big he seems when he’s moving at the speed of life.  But in the silence, surrounded by his fear, I realize how small he really is and how this spinning sphere stands still when we are trembling in the shadows. And I whisper thanks that I’m the first soldier he calls to the battlefield and I pray that I am teaching him well about the One who comes with me, the One who goes ahead of us both.  The One who lights up a room because in Him there is no darkness.

Fear… it starts small in a child’s bedroom with the nocturnal sounds and the long shadows and the dark of night. 

Over time, it grows into adult-sized worry, or even full-on paralysis, keeping God-sized dreams in the shadows of our anxiety.  As I lay there, he has no idea I’m battling fears of my own.  He called on me because he thinks I’m courageous.  He called on me because He knew I’d come. 

As we nestle together and dream our what-ifs right there in the dark where danger lurks, I start to hear Jesus’ words in his deep, tiny boy voice sharing wishes that are bigger than both of us.  A child doesn’t know how to think within walls or dream with rules and boundaries or put limits on possibilities.  A child believes all things are possible as long as you have a Friend to walk with through the darkness, past your circumstances.  

“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)

He finally lets go, exhales his fears to the ground as his eyelids close soft.  I watch him breathe for a minute before I get up.  As I walk the steps from his bed to the door in quiet darkness, I smile knowing I’m in the presence of a great Friend, both in the darkness and the light.  And I pray that when the darkness closes in, suffocating my dreams, I can muster the courage to speak one word.

Jesus.

 

 

The Lord is my light and my salvation - 

  whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?

 

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek:

  that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

  to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

 

Hear my voice when I call, O Lord;

  be merciful to me and answer me.

 

My heart says of you, "Seek his face!"

  Your face, Lord, I will seek. 

 

(Psalm 27:1, 4, 7-8)