I learned to be afraid when I was 4 years old.

It was a culmination of things, really – that happened that year. My father was drinking and using more heavily than ever, and despite my mother’s best efforts to have his visitation rights revoked because of his history of violence, I still had to visit him.  And 4 was a hard age because it was old enough for things to not just hurt physically anymore, but emotionally too.

One of my father’s favorite ways to terrorize me was to play tricks or mind games on me.  So while I had already learned that the dog and I were better off hiding in our little closet when he was drinking  and got that dangerous little gleam his eye, the mind games were harder to see coming and there often wasn’t time to hide. And it was on one of these occasions that it really clicked for me; that people can’t be trusted and that I should always be afraid.  It was also the last time I ever saw him.

He told me to go get in the car because we were going somewhere.  I don’t remember where exactly, only that I was pretty excited about it.  I ran out to the driveway to our car that was parked at the top of the hill we lived on in Colorado, mindful of the fairly steep drop off nearby, and waited for my dad to open the door to the back seat.   He surprised me by saying that today I got to ride in the FRONT seat, which was even more exciting because everyone knows only big girls get to ride in the front.  He opened the door for me and I climbed on in and started trying to put my seat belt on, because even then I was a seat belt kind of girl, and again, everyone knows that big girls always wear their seat belts.  But as he leaned in over me and pulled the seat belt away from me, I could smell the liquor on his breath.  And suddenly all the excitement drained away and I felt very, very scared.  And then, as he casually just left my passenger door halfway open, I recognized that all-too-familiar gleam in his eye, and I knew.

He walked around and got in the driver side seat beside me, and I began to panic and frantically pull at my seat belt and tell him “Daddy, you didn’t close my door!  Daddy, you forgot to close my door!”  But as was usually the case when he had been drinking, it was like he couldn’t even hear me.  And before I could do anything to stop him, he started the car, put it in reverse, and slammed on the gas.

Thankfully, I don’t remember anything after that.  I don’t actually remember him pushing me out of that car or rolling down that hill.  But I do remember that Johnny Cash was singing Ring of Fire on the radio.  And that in that moment, I knew- without a shadow of a doubt – that daddies weren’t safe and that I should always, always be afraid.

•     •     •

That day with the car – those years with my dad – they stayed with me.  They haunted me and served as a foundation of fear that other daddies and experiences built onto.  And I built onto that a belief that I was the only one I could count on, and that people (men especially) could never be trusted.  And as is often the case with people with “daddy issues,” I developed a pretty skewed picture of who God was as well.  I decided that God let these things happen to me because I deserved them. That I must be a bad kid or a huge disappointment to him somehow.  That must have been why he never stepped in to protect or comfort me; He had no interest or use for me either.

So I grew up afraid of God just like I was afraid of people.  And the “Christians” I did run into along the way were all too happy to judge me on his behalf, so that I really knew I wasn’t welcome.  The few who spoke kindly to me (and of God) always made the mistake of describing him as “Father,” which just terrified me all the more.  And  then, on those few occasions I did try to talk to him, He just seemed to stay silent.

When I got a little older, that fear carved a hole in me and I began to make some very bad decisions. I did whatever it took to get noticed or feel loved  and approved of in an effort to try to fill up that space.  And I repeated the same mistakes over and over again –  trying to make people love me that just weren’t willing or capable. There was no one there to tell me that it didn’t have to be that way- that I didn’t have to give myself away to be loved.  So that is what I did.  I did a lot of damage to myself in those years, and I ended up in a terribly dark place where I found myself more afraid and more alone than ever before.  There are so many things during that time that I wish I could take back, versions of myself that I don’t like to remember having been.  And yet if it weren’t for those things, I wouldn’t have been so ground down to nothing , so dead and silent inside,  that I could finally hear His voice.  And the funny thing about it was that when I finally heard it, I recognized it.  His voice was that quiet familiar hum that had been there all along, like a soft song  you can only hear when all the noise stops at the party.

There at my rock bottom, I heard him; I felt him.  He saw who I was – the mess I was – and yet He still whispered that He loved me.  I was astounded.  The God I had heard about was a God of fear and punishment and wrath.  And this God I was finding when I cracked open a Bible and began to read and search and discover, was one of forgiveness and grace.  He was a God who had taken countless broken people – just like me – and made them whole again.  The more I learned about Him, the more I loved Him; and the more I believed that He loved me too.

•     •     •

Fast forward 10 years, and I am still a little bit scared. I’m always going to be a little bit chicken.  There’s a lot to be afraid of in this world, to be sure.  And I am still struggling with what it means to trust God with my heart and my life, and know (especially when I mess up) that He loves me unconditionally. But as Pastor Laura said, God didn’t give us a Spirit of fear.  And since fear is not of God, it should not be of me. So I’ve been taking those little steps of faith, learning to trust in His love and His plan for me; taking that tiny step and asking God, “here?” and then listening for what’s next.  And I’m beginning to see God’s work in my life, in the world.   I’m even  beginning to see God in people –  in my friends and family, in my church.

There’s a quote I heard in a movie that pretty well sums up what He has been teaching me lately:  “Danger is very real. But Fear is a choice.”  So this is an area of my life that He and I have been working hard at. He continues to reach out to me and heal me.  But because He is God and He likes to be difficult and challenge me, He has asked that I let him do his best work in the most terrifying corners of my life.  He has asked me to step out of the safe little bubble I have lived nearly my whole life hiding in, and build relationships (with people – whom I’m afraid of.)  But little by little, I am following His voice and venturing out to a place where I let people close; a place where I let them love me.  And He’s also called me to tell my story through writing and speaking like I did at church this weekend (to people – whom I’m afraid of.)  🙂

But I think it’s important to tell our stories.  Because my story is just like a dozen others in the Bible, and an awful lot like yours probably.  It is the story of being held captive to something that God didn’t put in our hearts or our lives and then day by day, letting His love set us free.

I recently finished a song called Crossroads that is all about those little moments in our lives where we have to make a choice.  And while this song is not the most lyrically profound I have ever written, it speaks to me right now and the last verse says this:

Your words and promises, written for me

Lettered in red and then nailed to a tree

Jesus, you came to set all captives free

And I want to be free.

See, I know that there are other people out there who are afraid to feel, afraid to love, afraid of God.  And I know what it’s like to think you aren’t good enough to be loved by Him or used for His glory.  I know what it means to be fearful. But I also know that a life lived in fear is not God’s will for me.  So in this new chapter in my life, I am learning instead what it means to be brave and what it means to be obedient.  And what I am trying to do now, at each of these crossroads, is choose – not the fear, but the healing instead.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.” ~ Isaiah 43:1a

hear my pastor’s full sermon on Breaking Free from Fear, along with this talk here