Freedom from Fear

Letting your hand fall after hanging up the phone is a gesture that feels longwinded, like a million miles pass as the hand falls from the ear to the side.  

Each call to supporters musters a flexing of muscles, to put your full self out there, and then after the phone call is over the expansion of the heart stretches, leaving room, leaving doubt in each of the fissures caused by contraction and expansion. 

Quick. Say a short prayer. Thank God. Then jump back up and flex again before you can convince yourself that you’re too tired or that you’re too discouraged to make another call. 

Every call is a step of faith, into thin air, hoping that people will believe that I’m doing good, that God is doing something good through me, in me, to me, and that I’m worth people spending money to invest in who I am and what I’m doing. 

It is a lot of weight, but I know that God has put me here for a reason—so I wage onward in the war against those feigned, but strong discouragements— With $450 raised of the $8,650, I become determined to keep moving the line, even if I can’t see it. 

On one particularly heavy day, where the skin feels like it’s been peeled off, discouragement is high after hours of calls, with few signs of success, and the only drive comes from trying to fill the time that I’ve set aside. Breakthroughs aren’t happening, but I’m sewing seed that I hope to reap later. 

I get done. 

There’s a party that I’m going to with a friend. She tells me that she’s leaving the area, and my heart is broken for this friendship that will be taxed with long distance. — I forget about support for the next week. 

Why am I here? What am I doing with my life? — Questions that plague me more than most people, but are impossible to avoid in the face of significant loss and when things just aren’t running smoothly. 

I relate to CS Lewis when he says that he was, “drug into the kingdom (of God) kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape.” 

That’s how I arrived in Georgia. I didn’t unpack my car for three days, because I was ready to zoom out of that place as quickly as I had come. The decision wasn’t what I wanted, and it seemed not to clearly make sense. All I had was a voice deep down that told me to go, and I couldn’t deny it. Confirmation came afterwards, not before. 

November rolls around, but God’s promises look naive. Scraping together what I can look at in my hand, I begin to weigh my situation, I didn’t really have a whole lot of friends, I was losing one a good one, and the money to stay with my missions organization was not in my support account. What was God doing?

Had He forgotten? Was I crazy? Was I really just being irresponsible?  

Driving north, I was Ohio-bound, going to see my family. 12 hours of driving allowed me to hit the sack, but not before checking to see that my support account was still dreadfully short of my goal. 

Then God spoke into my situation.

He told me to give thanks. 

For some reason, I trusted Him that night. I trusted that whatever happened in my relationships, my work, my living condition, would be in His will, and I trusted Him. 

Gratitude waxed in my heart, as I reflected on the gifts that God had given me, instead of my lack. Then, what had originated in my heart worked its way outward, and my lips finished the act as I talked with God. 

Walking downstairs in the morning, the first conversation I had was with my Mom, and she grilled me on my support raising. Ideas got tossed around on how to raise more money through projects, and it’s obvious to see, she’s a bit worried about me raising the money.

Retreating to my room, I hear a knock on my bedroom door, and my Dad opens up, “Son have you seen your support bar?”

Before my dad can finish his thought, my mind rolls its eyes, as I think, “here it comes again.” I want him to stop his words, because I’m already feeling a sense of failure come over me. 

But to my surprise my father finishes his thought with, “Your support bar is filled up. 

“What?” 

“Your support looks like it’s fully raised.”

Shock overran my face. 

“Did you see that?”

“What? Dad, don’t mess with me,” I repeat in my mind, as I look at the computer screen showing that I raised $9,150, demolishing the $8,650 goal. 

It’s still a few hours before I fully believe what has happened, but then I am able to actually savor the fact that God has provided for me. 

That heart racing liminal space where doubt creeps into the fissures of a broken, finite, palpating heart is where God meets us, with all of our apprehensions, carried like toxins shut up in our bodies, so that He can embrace us, flushing out our debilitations, and strengthening relationship. It’s not tried and true. It’s risky, and scary. It’s not a sure thing. It’s a broken cart with 3 wheels instead of four, and they all need oiled—It doesn’t seem right, but He whispers to our hearts to be still — 

“Trust me.” He says, as we remain blind to what He has prepared.

Trust that He is enough for our insufficiencies.

Trust that the seed He planted will grow.