yep… fear itself.  Now, remember that the emotional/relational need we’re focusing on this week is security/peace.  Granted, fear robs you and keeps you from that need but I want to make sure we don’t over focus on the obstacle and not the need.  We’ve gone over a lot this week and I hope and pray that you are finding ways to process (attaching comfort to grief) some lifetime hurts while being open and honest about how to obtain security and peace in the present.

I do, however, want to look at one last reason fear violates your ability to have peace and security in a very real way.  I present this through an age old quote from FDR that is basically cliche’ anymore.  “The only thing we have to fear is…fear itself.”  I have always looked at this phrase to mean, “Don’t fear.”  Yet, that is not what it says.  It, in fact, encourages you TO fear.  It directs you to fear…fear.

Interesting.  Actually, more than that, for me it was a bit mind blowing.  Rather than devolve into what FDR’s intentions were (if you google it you can laugh at how many people have time to debate things on sites like Yahoo answers) I simply want to explain the brilliance of this statement to me.

As mentioned this week in the previous posts on peace/security, fear limits our ability to live freely.  It keeps you from peace and security.  To swallow it down and ignore it (or pretend to) causes many many problems.  First you don’t have the peace and security you need.  Second, it transforms itself physically somewhere in your body.  Fear, as much as any other byproduct of unprocessed hurts, is damaging and will take it’s toll.  Fear, like stress in general, is known to cause ulcers, high blood pressure, migraines, hair loss, sleeplessness etc.  Your body knows what’s up and doesn’t want that fear any more than your conscious mind does.  Remember, fear has already limited your ability to truly live.  You have focused on not doing something that you want or feel the need to do because of what MIGHT happen.  Now, to deny that the fear even exists leaves you wrecked on the inside as well.

So…if something has the ability to rob you of your ability to achieve, AND tears at you from the inside, you absolutely should fear something like that.  Now, to fear…fear, is not to twiddle your thumbs and “oh dear” it forever.  No.  The key is to address it.  “Face your fear” is a great quote/cliche’ as well.  I’m not even encouraging you to do that.  You don’t need to be jumping out of planes, or standing in your dark basement waiting for the boogeyman to attack.  Just look at it and begin to process it.  Your hurts from childhood that have left you with a ton of fear in certain areas of your life?  Share them with a trusted loved one who can cry with you or tell you that, “yeah, that does seem scary…I am so sorry you went through that.”  Process your hurts.  The thoughts of peril and anxiety that lead you on a downward spiral ending in personal or actual Armageddon?  Look at it for a moment and ask if you would, in fact, die if those things happened.

To show you how outstanding of an author I am there was a quote recently that moved me in great fashion.  It was, “You must come to peace with the worst possible case scenario.  Only then can you truly live.”  Who said that?  Uh, ummm, errrrr, I think it was Saint Mohammed Bashir Dr. Phil Carolla Ray Jay Shaquille Lama Johnson.  Yeah, I document my sources.  My inability to recall the author does not diminish the truth of the statement (in my eyes at least).

In my case, could Trey die?  Yep.  Would that suck (to say the least)?  Yep.  Would that impact Joe and Bella for a lifetime?  Sure will.  Would it forever change Rachel and me and our relationship?  Can’t imagine how it wouldn’t.  But if we were to deny that possibility or fear it would rob us of the day to day peace and security that we have with who he is and who we are.

Fear is nasty.  It robs you of security.  It keeps you from peace.  It is not to be ignored but instead faced, managed, processed and appropriately dealt with.  Not doing that is simply destructive and something that should be, yes, feared.