Fear

Fear is the most paralyzing emotion I have. As a person with a panic disorder, I am afraid of everything. Things that most people don't even give a second thought to (Did I just say the wrong thing to that person? Did I leave the curling iron on? Is my car making a funny sound? Is my stomach making a funny sound? What should I do about x, y, or z? Am I living up to my potential? Should I get this cereal or that cereal?) drive me crazy. These questions, and ones just like them, race through my head, and while to most, they might seem like only ant-small thoughts, in my world, a stampede of ants is still a stampede.

And yet it is fear that at last sends me scampering back to prayer, usually. Yes, this is usually after everything I can do has failed to alleviate the fear, and yes, it is usually the only thing I can think of to solve the problem I am scared about. And heaven help the God who doesn't give me the answer I want, or so I seem to think most of the time.

A song I really like has a line that goes, "I never minded calling you a king if that meant that I could count on you to give me everything." So often, this is how I respond. Everything is cool as long as everything is going my way. Me and God can have a great relationship so long as he gives me what I want. Otherwise, he's an ogre, I'm way too cool to hang out with him, and I hate him. I can never decide whether or not this makes me a toddler or a teenager, but either way, it's infantile behavior.

Yesterday, something happened to cause me a great deal of fear. It's probably irrational. On Monday, I will probably find out that everything is OK and that nothing is really wrong. At the same time, there is nothing I can do and nothing I can find out until Monday. So here I am again, calling on the God I believe in from time to time to do something amazing and fix it all. I'm calling on him to make it all right because I want to believe that it is all right.

I am so fickle, both in my believe and lack thereof. How can one person hold so much doubt and so much belief? And if it doesn't go my way come Monday morning, am I going to throw another tantrum and refuse to talk to God for months even though, as far as I can tell from this blog so far, I seem to believe he exists? And if it does go my way, am I going to hold it as more evidence that he does exist?

Sometimes, I am appalled at my own lack of steadfastness. I feel like I should take to heart the part in Serenity where Book tells Mal, "I don't care what you believe. Just believe it." Sometimes, I feel like that's what God would say to me if I would hear him. Pick a direction and go with it. Stop flirting around the point. Either get on board and be a Christian, or get off the damn train, but don't hang from the railing or swing off the steps and make me come rescue you over and over again.

Even there, my fear paralyzes me. Even there, I don't know what direction to pick. I want to believe, but sometimes, I just don't. While it makes me angry with myself and with him, sometimes, I just "need someone with skin on," and when I'm scared, it never seems like he does.

At the same time, a lot of times, when I'm scared, he's the only one who comes close. I read my Bible last night because I couldn't sleep, and I stumbled across Psalm 4:8 "I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." So it comes to me that it doesn't matter what the outcome is. I know that I'll come through it regardless, not that "coming through it" neccessarily means the same thing on both sides of Heaven. One way or another, the answer will come, and if I really believe what I seem to keep saying I believe, then I'm protected. Not neccessarily from pain (because that was never the point) but at least from the fear, and that's usually what I have the hardest time dealing with anyway.