The One Where Someone Else Faces Her Fear

This blog has turned into a journal of sorts, so dearest readers, feel free to skim or completely ignore this and any other post that wears on your nerves.

I just read a "tweet" on twitter that linked to a blog written by a Canadian Jesus-loving girl. In her post, Sarah Bessey wrote of facing her biggest fear and how it didn't turn out as she expected. According to Bessey, speaking about certain issues in public or on camera causes her incredible fear and anxiety. Here's part of what she wrote:

....I lost it.

I did. I blubbered. I cried. I was sweating. I was red-faced. I kept stopping in the middle to compose myself. I felt like running away. I sobbed. I had to restart three times. I was shaking. It was horrible, ugly. And my voice shook and squeaked, and I barked out sobs a couple of times.
It was one-part true emotion for the work we were undertaking and my passion for the Legacy Project, but it was also the fear choking me at the same time.
But I did it. When I finished, I laid my head on the desk and cried.

Strangely, I don't have the same fear. Thanks to a pushy caring pastor's wife, I was forced to get over that particular fear when I was but a wee middle school girl. (Who am I kidding? I have NEVER been a "wee" one.) However, I can completely relate to Bessey's gut-wrenching description of experiencing and facing fear. While reading it, I cried along with her, and then I cried when I realized how her words spoke to my own issues.

I'm not afraid of public speaking. Put me on stage--with or without a script--or put me in front of a classroom full of teenagers, and I'm (strangely) OK.

I'm afraid of private speaking.

You know what I mean. One-on-one. Especially when I don't know the person well or at all.

Alot of my fear stems from self-consciousness about my size. Now that I think about it, I find it very strange that I'm not afraid of being fat in public; apparently, I'm terrified of being fat in front of just a few people a time.... Weird.

When you want to get to the ugly truth, though, my self-consciousness is just a warped kind of sinful pride. I'm too preoccupied with myself and with how others perceive me. When it comes to genuine, Christ-centered living, this fear and preoccupation can destroy my effectiveness in His kingdom. It's time to take the focus away from myself and put it back where it's supposed to be: on Christ.

My weight is an issue. It IS a stumbling block for me and possibly for others, too. This weight thing MUST be dealt with.  More importantly, though, this fear--this sinful obsession with myself--must go.

And now that I've called this particular "spade" a "spade," God's gonna make me deal with it.

I'm going to be hammering out these issues of weight and fear for a while, I suppose.

Here's the rest of what Sarah Bessey wrote:

It was every bit as awful as I’d imagined, but I did it anyway.

I thought I would be rewarded for my efforts by a good experience.....But it doesn’t always work that way.

Sometimes the first step is just as awful as you imagined.

But you do it anyway.

And you keep doing it, over and over, until the root of that fear is dug out of the rocky hard soil, and you are free of it at last, and I believe God is making something beautiful out of it all.

Let's consider this post as a first step taken.

All I can do now is dry my tears and say, "Amen."

What about you?  What are you afraid of?

*************Here's the link to Sarah Bessey's original post. I've not read much else that she's written, so don't hold me responsible for her personal perspectives :) *************************

http://sarahbessey.com/in-which-i-confront-one-of-my-great-fear/