Without Fear

Since getting engaged a little over two weeks ago, I've experienced a little fear... well, actually quite a bit of fear. I am fearful of being unprepared for marriage, fearful of failing at a second marriage, fearful of not being the kind of wife my new husband will need, fearful of not being able to handle various aspects of blended family life, fearful of moving to a new town, fearful of changing jobs, fearful of being abandoned by a man I love yet again ... basically, I am fearful of the unknown. Additionally, I have been trying to prepare for my first ever speaking engagement for God, and finding that I am fearful in this as well ... fearful of failing God



As I have thought about and processed through these fears, God graciously brought to my remembrance this essay that I wrote nearly 2 years ago. He reminded me that a life that is lived in fear is not really a life that is lived well. I want to live my life well and bring much glory to God ... so let me not linger and dwell on my fears. Rather, let me live my life in such a way that I am bold and courageous, stepping out in faith, trusting that God holds me in the palm of His mighty hand and that He will be ever faithful to give me everything I need to live my life without fear.



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Without Fear

November 18, 2008



I have this homeschooling friend who recently became a single mother. She wrote about how she was looking for ways to bring in extra money so that she could continue to stay home full time rather than put her children into school and return to work. I read those words and paused for a second, wondering if I had not tried hard enough to figure out a way to continue to be home with my own kids. After all, putting the children into school wasn't part of my dream for this life. I wanted to admire my friend for her strong desire to continue to live out her life's dream. But as I reread the words, I noticed something else there ... FEAR. I realized that she seemed to be fearful. Maybe she was fearful of all the changes in her life now, or perhaps she was simply fearful of the public school system. I can't say exactly what her fears might have been, but I recognized her fearful state of mind.



I know all about fear. I have done many things in my life based on fear, including choosing my college degree. I knew what a teacher did and it was comfortable to imagine myself doing the same sort of work. I was fearful of choosing a different career ... what if I failed at that job, or didn't like it after I already earned the degree. And so, I chose the safe route. I became a teacher. Oddly enough, once I was in the classroom, I didn't really enjoy the work. I adore children, and I love learning. I do not, however, like attempting to teach a classroom of 25 pupils. And yet, for so long, I was fearful of doing anything else because of the unknown aspect.



I had so many fears.



I was fearful of moving away from my hometown. What if no one else liked me? What if all these people from my small little community like me because of who my family happens to be or because we go to church together?



I was fearful of putting my kids into public school for a myriad of reasons. What if my kids were teased or bullied? What if they had a bad teacher? What if they didn't get the best education? What if we lived in a school district that wasn't great?



I lived my life in fear. It wasn't a debilitating fear. I functioned fairly normally on a daily basis. But my deep-seated fears drove all of my decisions.



For my entire married life, I was extremely fearful of Matt leaving me. During that awful summer and fall when my marriage was ripping apart at the seams, I tried as hard as I could to keep him from leaving, to convince him to stay with me and the kids. Looking back, I can see that it was fear that drove how I responded to him. Nothing I did worked, and as it turned out, that great fear of mine came to pass. But ... and bear with me on this because it is hard to explain ... when he uttered those words, "I want a divorce. I want out of this marriage." there was this click in my heart. At that very moment, the biggest part of the fear was gone. The fear didn't totally go away at that moment and there were some times in the months ahead when I was extremely fearful. Yet, at that moment, it was as if deep down in my heart I knew I would survive this. This thing I had been fearing had actually happened and I hadn't fallen over dead.



I also knew that I was going to have swim or I would sink ... so right then and there, in that remote cabin in North Carolina, I made the decision to swim for Paige rather than to sink for Matt.



Let me make one thing clear ... I would have sunk WITH Matt. I would have fought for our marriage forever, with him fighting right next to me. But when he wanted out, when he refused to give me any hope of reconciliation, when he gave up the fight for us, then I began to refuse to sink for him. (I hope that makes sense. It's not a decision that I ever thought I'd have to make. However, we all know that a marriage is made up of two people ... and sadly when one person bails out of the marriage, the other will not be able to keep the marriage floating by themselves.)



Since that time, I've had to make a lot of decisions. I decided to return to work. Six weeks later, I decided to change careers. There have been other decisions, but these were the first big two. Making these and other big decisions has done several important things for me:



I've gained confidence in God and in His guidance offered to me. As my trust in Him has increased, my fear has decreased. I don't live in unhealthy fear anymore.



Those decisions were incredibly tough to make, but in the long run each one has helped me to move on in my life, process the grief and begin to refocus on my blessings. Learning to trust the Lord to help me make wise and good decisions has helped me to overcome the fear and to empower myself through Him.



I read an interesting quote tonight: We must give up the life we dreamed of in order to have the life that is before us.



No ... this isn't at all the life I dreamed of or planned for myself and my kids. I have lost a lot of my personal dreams ... dreams that I held dear to my heart. I no longer homeschool. I probably won't have the opportunity to live in a wide variety of places or travel the nation/world with as much ease as I did as a military spouse. I'm no longer a wife, serving my family. I am a single mom, and it is an incredibly tough job.



And yet, I can't sit around moaning about my life now. If I did that, I would not only have lost what I had then, I would be losing what I have now as well.



I know that the Lord does not intend for us to divorce our spouses. I would never ever recommend it to anyone. But it happened and with it my life changed. I could continue to sit in one spot, clinging to the little things of the past I could continue to grasp. Or I could step out in faith toward God and give myself fully to Him, even though I knew it would mean some dramatic changes. I'm glad I chose the latter, for even though life today certainly isn't a bed of roses, there is far too much right in my life for me not to embrace it with a heart of thanksgiving.



The thing about life is that it goes on every day. Good days, bad days, dark days, happy days ... life goes on. Joyous seasons, sad seasons, seasons of confusion ... life goes on. And really, when it boils down to the nitty-gritty day in and day out life, I'm incredibly blessed.



Every day I wake up to 3 beautiful children, who cause me to laugh and smile and occasionally pull my hair out. I have a cozy house with a beautiful view, a good job that pays me enough money to cover the bills without having to stress too much. My minivan is able to get me to work and home again every evening. The dog loves me and hates the cat, and the cat loves me and hates the dog ... that in itself reminds me that life is pretty much as it should be.



Day in and day out , life goes on. And, until the day I die, my life will go on. I can't choose much of what will happen to me while I'm living. But I can choose to live this life with a smile and a determination to love those around me. I can choose to enjoy every day. I can choose to be thankful for the blessings (both big and small) that touch my life. I can choose to wake up every morning and embrace life that day ... even if it is different from all the days before it. And, through Christ, I can live my life without fear.



Don't panic. I'm with you. There's no need to fear for I'm your God. I'll give you strength. I'll help you. I'll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you. (Isaiah 41:8)

Make Yourself At Home

For the past couple of years, my life has felt slightly unsettled, as if I am just waiting around for something new to happen. The first 18 months following the death of my marriage three years ago, I mourned and grieved and literally focused on taking one breath at a time as I tried to figure out how to live again. Then one day I realized that I had entered a new phase, for I was no longer walking around in a haze of grief. Joy and peace had returned to my life once again. And there was something new ... hope. I hadn't felt hope in a long time, but there is was and I was so happy to discover that glimmering friend again.

Hope brought an interesting response from me. As I began to hope, I began to dream again. And as I dreamed big dreams for my future, I began to feel as if I were waiting ... waiting on those dreams to become reality. It doesn't so much matter what the dreams are, for there are several dreams for my future that I hold dear to my heart. What does matter is that I put myself in a holding pattern while I was waiting and hoping for my future, instead of embracing what my life is right now.

I will be the first to admit that waiting can be a good thing. After all, when we wait for something that we really desire, it is all the more precious to us when it finally is ours because of the wait that we endured. But waiting can also cause us to become inactive participants in life. Such was the case with me.

This past Saturday morning I had a big ole self-pity party going on before I ever even crawled out of bed. I was fighting off a lot of negative emotions, one of which was a feeling of being unsettled in my life. I cannot fully describe all of the ways that I feel unsettled .... there is my job and the sporadic childcare that I've had since I moved last summer. But perhaps one of the biggest reason for the unsettled feeling is the lack of close friends in the area that I am living currently. This is odd to me, for as a former military spouse I moved frequently. I have friends from every military installation where my ex-husband was stationed. I never had a problem finding friends, and have many close friends from those places. I cherish those friends who live in Virginia, Michigan, Washington and Texas. Obviously, though, all of these close friends live a little too far away to call up for a spur of the moment lunch invitation.

I've lived on both coasts and quite a few states in between, and yet by far the move I made last summer from my hometown to my current home in Jena (a mere 30 miles apart) has been the hardest move I've ever made out of 16 moves in my adult life. It's been 15 months since I unpacked the boxes in my new home, and I still cannot seem to find my legs here. I have no doubt about the fact that God wanted me to move to Jena. It's very clear that I was called to come live in this place for this season of my life. Truly, there is so much that I enjoy about life here. I love my little house. I go to a wonderful church. My kids attend a great school. I think Jena is a sweet and safe town. And I have many wonderful acquaintances that I've grown to love ... yet I do not have a single close friendship in this place, and as a result, I feel unsettled and a little lonely.

So Saturday morning, I complained to God about the lack of friends and the loneliness and the unsettled feeling I have about living here. And do you know how He responded? He said:

"Paige, I do not think people who have yet to hang up curtains should complain about feeling unsettled."

Me: "What do curtains have to do with me feeling unsettled?"

God: "You've lived in your home well over a year now. You haven't hung up any curtains. Are you planning to stay? Generally, when people plan to stay, they hang up curtains."

Me: "Well ... I'm not planning to go."

God: "That's not what I asked. I asked if you were planning to stay."

Me: "Okay ... here's the deal. My job isn't here. Child care has been sporadic and undependable. And I don't have any friends here. I keep pushing on doors and pushing on doors and pushing on doors ... but none of them open. And as a result, I don't feel settled. Why should I hang up curtains? What does that have to do with anything anyway?"

God: "The truth is, Paige, that you don't know how much longer you will be here ... it could be 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years or 2 decades. It really doesn't matter. I asked you to come here and live. So live here ... make yourself at home, Paige. Hang a few curtains."

So, I lay there and pondered curtains and why I hadn't yet hung any. There were a few good reasons. (Well, reasons anyway. I suppose that it could be debated over whether or not they were good reasons.) On reason was that I had never hung curtains before and I wasn't really sure I knew how. I mean, I knew that it couldn't be that hard to hang up curtains, but what if I hung them wrong. What if they were crooked and people came over to my house and laughed at my curtains hanging over the windows because they weren't even? Besides, I didn't even own a drill, for Pete's sake! How could I hang up curtains without a drill? And finally, what if I went to the store, selected some curtains for my windows, came home and hung them up and then hated the way they looked ... why, it would be a lot of money down the drain! I don't have a lot of money. It is just easier to have bare windows than to risk failure.

Somehow though, I realized that this really wasn't about curtains. It was about me choosing to LIVE my life, instead of simply BIDING my time.

As a Christian, I know that this world is not my home. My final destination is heaven. I long for heaven and to be with my Saviour. But we can't just sit around waiting for God to take us home. In fact, Jesus warned us about that in the parable about the talents, which is found in Matthew 25. When Christ returns, He wants to find that we have been busy working for His kingdom ... not that we have been sitting around awaiting His return. So as much as I want to go to heaven and live in paradise, while I am on this earth I need to be about the Father's business.

Mercy Me has a new album titled The Generous Mr. Lovewell that I've been enjoying lately. The first song is called This Life, and the lyrics have been haunting me for the past couple of weeks, encouraging me to make the most of my life ... make the most of where I am at right now. Perhaps you'll be encouraged by these words too:

This Life by Mercy Me
This is not my home ... this is not my space
This is not my style ... this is not my place
Can't get comfortable... can't get settled in
Simply dont belong ... can't get used to this
But I'm here right now ... I can hear you say
Make the most of Me ... this won't go to waste
If I'm out of my mind .... yeah it's all for Christ
If I'm making sense ...then get it right
Every moment is a chance to let your light break through
This life (oh oh oh oh)
This life was meant to shine

I don't have to stall ... I don't have to wait
Don't have to bide my time ... till I make my escape
Cuz heaven's in my heart ... I won't settle for less
I will lift your name ... by the life I live
Every moment is a chance to let your light break through
This life (oh oh oh oh)
This life was meant to shine


By the way, I hung some curtains this weekend. I'm feeling more settled already for I'm planning to do more than bide my time ... I'm planning to stay. It may only be for a short while longer or it could be for years and years to come, but let it be said that while I was here I chose to live, and I didn't just wait.