And Still She Laughs by Kate Merrick

Author:Kate Merrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2017-02-09T16:00:00+00:00

Seven

LIONHEARTED

“Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!”

—MATTHEW 8:26

My biblical heroines, my fellow sufferers, are rock-solid. We’ve seen them go from weakness to strength, shame to dignity. From heartsickness to happiness, we link arms and walk together in the tight-knit clique of girl power. Together we are bold; we are defiantly joyful. We are kicking butt and taking names—until the “Eye of the Tiger” music comes to a screeching halt, and we are faced unexpectedly with fear. Fears lie dormant. They have been there all along but awaken like Bilbo’s dragon. Just when we think we are getting somewhere in our journey, fears stand in the way of great treasure. We can’t go any further in our discussion of strength, dignity, and laughter without confronting fear.

Fear. An ugly, nauseous word. Fear blows into our worlds uninvited and surrounds, thick like dog breath. It presses down, lies heavily on our chests, strangling and choking. It desires to paralyze, to make us sick. No longer can we walk poised. Fear trips our confident strides, and they become unwieldy. Hemmed in by an almost visible, stinking cloud of fear, we find ourselves self-focused, scratching to look out for number one. We believe the lies of self-preservation; we become tricked into distrusting Jesus.

Fear takes no prisoners. Fear just goes for the jugular, striking where it hurts. Fear leaves no one untouched, zeroing in on the most vulnerable parts of us, the most fragile. And the most costly.

I have a dear friend whose husband once got in a nasty motorcycle accident, and now, every single time any member of her family is on the road, she is stifled by fear and unable to think of anything else. Another friend faces the dread of miscarrying yet again, having her deepest desire stolen repeatedly. She fears the sight of blood, which threatens to rip her heart out. Others of my friends have battled loneliness, health problems, career loss, depression, cancer, sudden deaths in the family, and husbands with addictions. Satan always goes for the chink in the armor, threatening us with loathsome thoughts, with wild imaginations, with taunting and the cruel dangling of life’s horrors in front of our faces.

I knew fear intimately as a little girl. I endured many years petrified of the dark, thanks to scary movies and an overactive imagination. I would lie awake, sure I had seen something slithering in the shadows. I would nearly suffocate myself under the covers, believing that if I could hide long enough, they would protect me from whatever was lying in wait to harm me. It was more than just a childhood phase. After I got married I still turned on every light in the house on the nights when Britt went out of town, which were often. I’d play worship music on the stereo to calm my anxieties, but since those were the days before digital music, I also had to get up every fifty-four minutes or so to push play again. One night I

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.