What fears have you overcome and how?

To be completely transparent, I still have one HUGE fear that I’ve just given to God at this point because I cannot handle it on my own. 👀 However, there is one former fear that I would like to share with you today…

Fear

Considering the childhood that I endured, one would assume that my fears are either nonexistent or in abundance- with there being nothing in the middle. Yet my truth is just that, there was something in the middle… the fear of being alone.

As the youngest of five children on my mother’s side, I was never alone. There was ALWAYS someone in my home and even when my siblings were gone and my mother was at work, our home still held the presence of a full house. No, I was never there by myself. Yet as I got older and started to live my own life, I began to learn the difference between ALONE and LONELY, and in learning that, I discovered that oftentimes when I am physically alone, feelings of loneliness consume me with a vengeance. Those feelings of loneliness morph into feelings of inadequacy that slowly shift to self-deprecating thoughts and once there, the fear of being alone would take root. You see, I was never afraid of being physically alone, my fear has always been being alone with my thoughts. It’s a subtle difference, but one that has to be identified in order to understand me.

Overcoming?

My Love always tells me to relax and rest my mind. Little does he know that that particular combination of actions is the scariest thing in the world for me. Depression and anxiety have historically stolen the joy that existed in moments of being alone and that’s something that he cannot understand. Yet when I began this healing journey with God, I asked Him to reveal ALL areas of pain in my life… and then unapologetically and unequivocally heal me in those same areas. Much like my former fear of heights, my fear of being alone had to be broken down to identify the root cause, and then heal that cause one step at a time. Have I overcome my fear of being alone? Not necessarily, yet what God has done is given me His power and strength in those moments when I am alone. I’ve learned to hone in on His grace and mercy in the still moments and use that time to my creative advantage. It is in my alone time that I write- whether it be sermons, blogs, or journal entries. When I intentionally choose to sit with God during that time, the thoughts of self-harm and self-hate do not consume me. Healing has come to the place where hurt once dwelled.