Fear, Fearing Me

Fear, Fearing Me

“Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.” “A timid person is frightened before a danger, a coward during the time, and a courageous person afterward.” “Nothing to fear but fear itself.” Famous quotes by George Sewell, Jean Paul Richter and JFK all centered around fear.

Fear can be considered good or bad. I believe fear is something to overcome and another important obstacle in life. Whether it is a childish fear like being afraid of the dark or a more mature or adult fear. Either way I realize that someday you must overcome your fears, to stop looking at the problem and look past it to see why you are truly afraid.

I have been afraid of many things throughout my childhood and into my teenage or adolescence years. My fears have grown to be more rational but still unnerving. I am nowhere near perfect and I still have various fears that I am working on. For example, ever watch a scary movie and can’t get it out of your head? That’s me. In 2007 our town was hit pretty bad with an ice storm over the winter and almost everyone lost power. When our power went out my dad hooked up the generator so we could have light, heat and other things around the house. Though we were supposed to conserve as much gasoline as we could, my had sister brought home a movie called Resident Evil. Well I didn’t know what the movie was about, but not caring and being ignorant, I sat down and watched it. I will never watch another! Especially when you have to walk around your house in the dark with candles. To this day I still have nightmares of the whole world with an inhuman race consuming me. I make it out alive but I always lose my family. So when I look past the problem I see that my dream really boils down to the fear of losing my family.

Whenever I have that dream or one similar to it I wake up in a cold sweat and it takes me a few minutes before I recover and realize it was merely a dream. Then I replay the dreadful scenes in my head, assessing every detail to discover the heart of my fear. Once I accomplish this task I ask myself why I am so afraid. I usually come to the conclusion of preservation. It is natural to protect ourselves and those we love. It can keep us from doing something stupid or it can keep us from doing things we enjoy.

Fear is another tool in life that God gave to us help us. It gives us something to strive to and triumph over. So whenever I am scared and really don’t want to do something I always remember that fear, fears me of overcoming it. This I believe.