“My fears feel like necessary defenses against being hurt …”

Whenever my women’s events carry over from a Friday to a Saturday, Fred and I always invite the women to respond to three questions in writing (based on the topic of the event—peacemaking, Fear Not!, teens, etc.) and then we spend a significant amount of time reading through each response and then praying for all of the women.

Over the years, we have done this for thousands of women—I would say easily 10,000+—and we have kept every single prayer card that we have ever received. I have boxes of them! I just can’t throw them away … they are such precious glimpses into the hearts of these dear women.

One card from my fall events this year was particularly poignant. Like most, it was anonymous and so I cannot credit the author, though she is clearly a poet. This is what she wrote:

“I can’t imagine myself being free of my fears. They feel like necessary defenses against being hurt.”

How right she is!

When we worry, fret, live in fear … it’s almost as though we are blanketing ourselves with some level of emotional protection; some sort of relational vaccination against the pain that may come through the exposure of human vulnerability.

 Our fears tempt us to think about the future and expect suffering. Bad things. Rejection. Betrayal. Abandonment. Destruction. So if (not necessarily when–because if we were honest, I think most of us would have to admit that the majority of our fears never materialize) … if a bad thing happens, we’re already there. Hurt. Jaded. Tired. Cynical. Stoic. And we say:

“See! I knew it! This is exactly what I was afraid would happen. That’s why I NEVER really trusted him; I never REALLY opened my heart to her; I SAID I forgave them but I just KNEW they would do this again so I held back. Distrusted. Protected myself.”

Oh, friends. I know this temptation. I know it all too well! But I also can hear the ringing call of TRUTH battling against these (understandable) feelings. So many times, I have been challenged and confronted by friends who have loved me enough to tell me the truth. And here is truth:

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” 1 John 4:18 ESV

Listen to that again: “Perfect love casts out fear.” That means that when we fear, we do not love. And this makes sense! Because to love is to risk. To love is to make ourselves vulnerable. But to wrap ourselves in self-protection? To punish the people around us who have hurt us? To be “visionaries minus the optimism” (the definition Ed Welch brilliantly gives for worriers)? Those are ways that we forget the perfect love of God and the ways we fail to love our neighbor as ourselves.

May God help us to turn way from our fears and listen to  His Word with believing, obedient hearts.

With love from a recovering worrier,
Tara B.