Thursday, May 27, 2010
Choking Fear
Abby lay there choking and weeping. She was literally stuggling for breath. Oxygen tubes leading into her mouth delivered what she needed most, but in her fear and anguish she could barely get oxygen, the very thing she needed most.
I stood there over her, in my own anguish of soul. Could nothing more be done? Calm down, Abby. Calm down.
Thankfully, it was only a dream. Only a dream? I woke up this morning with that scene still before my eyes, in living color. The fear I felt in my dream was strong and fresh in my heart as I opened my eyes.
I don't take such dreams lightly, and this one I took seriously all the more because Abby is in a fight for her life. Her body is safe, but her soul is troubled, and we know it well.
I went over to her bed and prayed over her, that God would deliver her from the fears and sorrows that choke her. Then I began business of my own with God. I too struggle with choking fear.
Today I am due to have a conversation with a major client whose firm seems to have more people ready to take my work internal than people who want me to stick around. It's nothing personal – to them, anyway. But it sure is personal to me. And when I'm honest I've been in fear of this moment for a long time.
I picked up my book this morning and read where I left off yesterday. Abraham. Isaac. The long walk up a mountain. My mountain is smaller but it's been a long walk too. The transitioning process with this client is stretching on toward a year now.
If Abraham was counting on earthly things, he'd have been afraid. And maybe he was. I imagine he was. But He feared God more. And trusted God more. Maybe just barely, but enough.
If I counted on earthly things, I'd be afraid. I am afraid. So that answers that. But I fear God more. Maybe just barely, but enough.
Or do I? Do I fear God more? For if my life, from end to end, is marked more by trembling fear than by holy fear... that is not saying much. Trembling fear... that's what our new hamster has when my huge hands enter the cage. I keep delivering carrots, but she's still afraid of me. I'm not impressed by her fear. But I still love the little critter. Goofball. Doesn't she know I'll provide for her?
I'm as stupid as that hamster. Perhaps worse. She has no promises. But I do. The Bible, end to end, is a string of promises and words of affection. I will never leave you nor forsake you... Be strong and courageous... The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go...
I can be the recipient of these blessings... but only if I trust God.
So as I pray for my daughter Abby, I pray for myself too, and not least that by demonstrating trust myself, I will give her cause to do the same. If I cannot escape fear, what hope do I have to offer Abby? I tell her to let go. "Let go and open up those hands," I tell her. But my hands... why are they white and shaking? Why the sense of gloom in my heart today?
Hebrews 12:11-13
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. "Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
God help me to pave this home with level paths, that Abby would be healed.
Hebrews 12:18-24
You have not come to... darkness, gloom and storm.... But you have come to ... thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly... You have come to God... to Jesus...
God free me from choking fear and fill me with joy. And may Abby be likewise delivered.
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Thank you for sharing... I was moved by your honesty and your heart-words. I have known (and know now) choking fear,too. It IS only by His level paths (I love that image, thank you) and His freedom we are delivered.
ReplyDeleteWow ... you scared me! I had to scan the post just to be sure something tragic hadn't happened to Abby! I guess life itself is tragic and the fear we all experience is tragic enough ... but given your opening words, I feared for her life. I suppose we all live in fear even though we cling to the faith/fear we have in our all loving, all sufficient, all powerful, all knowing Heavenly Father. Talk about irony! I think of the Psalmist who so often lived in fear and yet managed (in almost every Psalm -- but not every one) to cling to his faith in God. I've come to the conclusion that the basic question raised throughout Scripture is: "Do you trust me?" From the Garden to the Eternal City, it seems to me like this is the foundational question. Do we really trust God? To not eat of a certain tree ... to build an ark ... to leave our land to go to a new place ... to sacrifice our only son ... to flee Egypt ... to enter the promised land ... to live without an earthly king ... to obey God's commands ... to trust his prophets ... to the incarnation and virgin birth ... and to the cross! The absurdity of the cross screams out, "Do you trust me?!" Can we trust that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ is somehow in its mystery (regardless of what particular theory or theories of atonement we subscribe to) is SUFFICIENT? If we do trust God, how then can we fear anything? And yet we do fear ... and so does that mean that we don't really trust? I live daily in that tension. Maybe living in that tension is the best I can hope for.
ReplyDeleteThe psalms of lament so often end with words of faith and trust. Yet some days don't we identify more with Psalm 88, the closing words of which are "the darkness is my closest friend." Maybe in the moments when we struggle to cling to God's love/friendship when fears (both real and imagined) engulf us the best we can do is trust that God clings to us.