Laughter Chasing Fear

I am a Christ follower who deeply struggles with insecurity. Thats it. No pretty way to decorate it and make it look nice, no pleasantries and a killer story to surprise you with this shocking reality. Welcome to my messy self. Yes, I did say a Christ follower, which would also mean an experiencer of His perfect love. Doesn't that seem hypocritical of me? To claim to know intimately the pinnacle of perfect love and still not be a secure person. Ha well, I would be utterly delighted to tell you a different story. But I was always told honesty is the best policy, so in keeping with the current trend, yeah I battle this insecurity thing every day. The thing is, my insecurity really has a dirty little secret, the kind buried in the deep dark basement which let be honest, no one wants to go in. That always seems to be the place that the good guys go into because they hear a scary noise, and then BAM!! Their dead. Thats it. In an effort to keep you from this tragic misfortune, I wil

Have you ever been afraid of something? I'm not talking just a little frightened... but a crippling fear, that grips your heart and chokes out any hint of courage and sends waves of anxiety through your body and you start to lose your breath, your will to even go forward... yeah, that kind of fear. I remember it, a certain memory burned into me that I will never forget. During my senior year of college God called me to work at a camp unlike many, a camp in the middle of nowhere, saturated in adventure and wilderness, completely in isolation from the outside world. Not only did He call me there, but on top of hill overlooking acres of creation, He asked me to give up comfort, security, and face some fears that haunted me. Part of this adventure includes a zip line. Not just any zip line, but one of the biggest there is. Its high and fast and challenging and I wasn't ready for it. Amongst many new faces and stories I didn't know, I was asked to cross the bridge to the

Im not perfect in the slightest. In fact, if were going to be honest I choose to make the wrong choices a lot. There are a lot of things that in all sincere reality I know are not good for me and I make choices to move towards them. I wrap myself in fear and insecurity. I seek after and strive for this perfection and a benchmark of a job well done or one that will be enough to be called good, or even great. I give reign to a thought life that controls me at every turn, consumes me to the point of starting to forget who I really am. I do think there is this idea of a Christian as someone who has it all together and is inching close to perfection, that they don't really do wrong and if we do then because God loves us then that makes it all okay. Well, that isn't true. It isn't okay. And I am a Christian who doesn't have it all together. I went to a conference and expected to hear all of these amazing things that inspire my heart to faith and goodness, which I di

When I looked out at the coming semester, with so many assignments and pages to read, busy days and an array of deadlines, amidst new tasks and challenges I had never encountered before, I only felt two things…fear and anxiety.  Nothing felt possible in those moments. I was overwhelmed with a flood of buts and what ifs and realizations that I was not in any way equipped to handle. I stood in the middle of my apartment without an idea how to move forward. As I looked out I began to understand that I truly didn't trust God with everything, and even more so, the struggle to trust Him in many areas of my life became all too real in these gripping seconds… Pretty much all that came were tears. Not the dainty, streaming kind but a rush of these small reminders that I could not get the fear and anxiety to go away. Sure I stopped and literally cried out to God with all that I had and did my best to surrender everything, but what I thought I laid down kept coming back. The more I hav

I have never really been one for New Year's resolutions. Maybe because the start of the new year did not seem like the best time to be making these heart felt promises swimming with desires to be better. I would much rather make them in my everyday life without a special holiday to commemorate the attempt. That is always what it felt like to me, a mere attempt. As a Christian, I am always told to strive for more and to live a better life because thats what I am called to do. Sometimes that presents a big problem, especially for me, it becomes a list and a striving that never seems to be satisfied. Then there is a constant image that follows you into every mirror and through every set of eyes, the idea that you have to have it altogether and if you mess up, you and this attempt to better yourself becomes an utter failure. Being at seminary surrounded by these thousands of people who all love and follow the same God I do has been the biggest mirror I have looked into. Daily I am