fear less.

i have always struggled with fear. for those who know me, this is a well known fact. i come by it honestly. i was born into a long line of worriers. as a little girl i remember when our school did fire-prevention day. most little kids just loved getting to "stop drop and roll" all over the floor, get to sit in the fire truck and wear a big, red plastic hat. me? well, i would lie in bed at night and plan out our "escape route" for when our house was on fire, because i was convinced that at some point it would be. when we went to disney world when i was in elementary school, i loved all of the rides and characters and shows. i thought it was the most magical place on earth. but i also clung to my parents because i had heard stories of kids being kidnapped there. when my parents went out of town on trips, i was afraid their plane would crash. when i was home by myself, i was afraid someone would break in. when nick and i were first married, i feared him getting in a car wreck. when i was pregnant i was afraid i would lose the baby. when i discovered a mole that looked a bit different i was convinced i had skin cancer. as you can see, the list goes on and on...

and on
and on and on.

i know, i know... i'm really exposing myself and by now you know that i am completely neurotic. and i am. but i think on some level we all are. what i have learned about us humans is that we are oftentimes filled with fear. it may disguise itself differently; as anger, control, or pride... but much of our behavior is fear based.

for me, it took a bout of anxiety and mild panic attacks, some medication and about a year of meeting with a counselor to start working through my fear-issue. i began seeing how much of a hold it had on my life and i hated it. it kept me from fully living, from fully loving and from fully being who god had created me to be.

you can't fully live when you're afraid of dying. you can't fully love when you're afraid of losing. and you can fully be who you were created to be when you're afraid to trust the One who created you.

thankfully god began to work through this fear stuff with me before i became a mom. because having a little one you are in charge of can bring it to a whole. new. level. there were many times throughout my pregnancy that i would lie awake at night, fearful. nick would constantly remind me that this was not our baby... it was god's baby. i had to continually keep placing bella in his hands; and i knew that was only the beginning. after i actually held her in my arms, that surrender became a bit more difficult. bringing her home from the hospital, i remember waking up at night and putting my hand on her chest just to feel it softly rise and fall, to know that she was still breathing. around two months we transitioned her from the pack and play beside our bed, to the crib in her room and that was another step of surrender for me. after all, she was a whole room away.

but the hardest night so far came after a oh-so-discouraging trip to the pediatricians office for bella's four month check up. i *love* bella's pediatrician so much i could write an entire blog post about how incredibly sweet she is. however, she had the nerve to have a baby and be out of the office on maternity leave for a couple of months. geesh. (note: sarcasm) so... we had to meet with a substitute doctor.

enter: someone who is not fit to ever {ever} meet with a first time mom.

upon meeting her, she seemed very sweet. an attractive woman in her late fifties. nice and smiley and talked the appropriate amount of baby talk with bella (always an important qualification). but our appointment began going downhill when i tried to ask her some of my questions and she read from a script, not giving me any answers or help to some of the things i had waited two months to ask. i then told her that we had been swaddling bella for sleeping and that one day i found her completely rolled over on her belly and it scared me (looking for consolation). i asked her if we should continue to swaddle and the conversation looked something like this:

dr: "oh, i don't know about that... can it get tangled around her neck? have you tried breathing through it to make sure she can breathe through it if it covers her face?"

me: "ummm... no..." ("tangled around her neck?! not being able to breathe through it?! great... i was just worried about her sleeping on her belly...")

me: "i mean, she holds her head up really well and she's four months... don't you think she's strong enough that if she ends up on her belly, she'll know to turn her head so she can breathe?"

dr: "oh, i don't know about that. i can't tell you one way or another. you do know that it only takes six minutes for the unthinkable to happen, right?"

me: nodding, silent, fighting back tears.

i left the dr's office that day and did what any new, first time mom would do. i called my mom and burst into tears. after talking with her and with nick, we decided to begin putting bella in regular pajamas and i proceeded to wake up almost every hour that first night, crawl into her room and look at her to make sure she was okay. as i sat on the floor at 4 am watching her (in a completely different position than how i had first put her down, i might add to make myself seem a little bit more sane... she was moving around a whole lot...) i realized that this was the longest, scariest night i had experienced--thus far--of being a mom (those of you who have been moms through the teenaged years i'm sure are getting a good chuckle right now). and then i realized how rediculous i was. that i just needed sleep. that she would be fine and i needed to--once again--trust god. he was, after all, the one who was (and is) writing bella's story from start to finish.

i share all of this not to show you how completely crazy i am, and where my thoughts can oftentimes take me when left unchecked. but to be vulnerable, to share a part of my journey, and god's faithfulness in healing my heart. he has brought me so much freedom, and i try to trust that every day he will bring more. freedom. that's his business. i know i will never reach being completely fearless this side of heaven. but i can ask the lord to help fear less.

(like that clever little play on words? that's the creativity of a tired mom at 11:45 am who can hear her baby who should be napping talking to herself in the other room.)

i've been listening to this song a whole lot lately. kinda reminds me that the fears and concerns of my heart are handled by someone who is far greater than i. love me some chris tomlin music. enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlA5IDnpGhc