surrender fear. Face Christ.
Surrender.
This is a powerful word. It is the ultimate form of releasing something.
One definition of surrender is: to give up completely.
But, to put surrender next to the word FEAR creates an emotional gut reaction for me and probably for most of you.
Fear is something that we are innately given. It is given to us to protect us in harmful and dangerous experiences.
Fear shows up when our brain yells at us to flee a situation.
For example, this summer I spent a few weeks in the mountains with my 5 children. We went out for a hike one day into a heavily wooded area. We had never hiked there and we were so excited to adventure into this new area.
This forest was filled with aspen trees, which happen to be my favorite. As we hiked, we got deeper and deeper into the trees, much further than I had anticipated. Our minds were filled with awe and beauty as we played in the fallen leaves, climbed broken down trees and played with our newest pet horny toad that my 8 year old had caught. We decided to stop and rest on a 30 foot fallen aspen tree. As we sat there, I had a weird feeling that we were being watched. Soon afterwards I felt the earth shake a little beneath me while a deep rumble sound rolled through the air.
I tried to ignore the immediate fear that struck my heart. But when it happened a second time and my 12 year old looked at me in absolute terror, and I knew that my mind was not making this up.
There was a bear hiding behind one of the bushes.
Fear hit me at a level that I cannot explain. It gave me an adrenaline that pushed me to Super Woman strength. I grabbed my two year old son and we ran as fast as we could. My 5 children, me and the horny toad that was clutched between my two year old’s tiny hands ran for our lives.
The fear was louder than I have ever felt as thoughts ran through my head wondering how I could ever protect all 5 kids, all by myself.
Terror had hit.
But after running for what felt like a mile, we made it back to our van without ever seeing the bear face to face. Everyone was safe.
This is fear.
This is why fear was given to us.
The sole purpose of fear, is to protect us in moments of danger or harm.
So why is it that most of us have fear in so many other situations? We have fear in our jobs, in our relationships, our dreams etc.
Fear rules most of our days, and we don’t even recognize it. It becomes so familiar that we are not aware of its presence in our lives.
For me, fear has dictated most of my life.
I worshiped fear.
You may be asking yourself, who worships fear?
But when you think about the word {worship} in MY personal dictionary worship means: anything I put all of my time, thoughts and actions to.
That is how I had lived my whole life around fear. It had controlled my daily life for as long as I could remember. Every moment of my day, every thought that rolled through my mind and almost everything I did went through the filter of fear.
I honestly believed that if I feared enough, then I would be prepared for anything. I believed the lie that fear breathes, and that lie is that fear would protect me.
This lie and illusion was broken when I actually started to face my fears.
With each fear I faced, I felt the shackles that had chained me down my whole life, were finally unbound.
And I learned that even our Biggest fears can be lightened through Christ.
When that TRUTH became real, then what was left to fear?
Nothing.
If Christ can heal all, then why spend our whole lives running and hiding from our fears?
Why worship at the altar of fear only to realize that once again it has not protected you and has only left you more broken?
I believe that fear can be likened to the disease Leprosy.
Leprosy can be in your system for 2–5 years before you start to see the symptoms. Sometimes it can even go unnoticed for up to 20 years! But, when the symptoms begin to surface, this disease has already weakened many of the nerves and some of the organs in the body.
This is how fear works inside of us on an emotional level.
When we let fear rule our thoughts and actions, we don’t see the result of its damaging effects right away. But, years later we will see how it has eaten away at every aspect of who we are. We will begin to see that fear had taken root within us and had spread its filth and rot into the corners of our lives. Just as leprosy eats away at the skin, nerves and organs of the body, decaying the body slowly and then as a whole. Fear eats away at the life we are meant to live, leaving behind it the scraps of dreams and hopes that were never fully seen or realized.
So what do we do now? Now that we have fully become aware of the toxicity and destruction of fear?
We are given the opportunity to surrender it.
If we can allow ourselves to
-stop numbing
-stop running
-face our fears
With Christ as our companion, we will cross through the fears that we dread so much.
I imagine an altar in front of me, and that Christ is on the other side. I imagine that as I kneel at the altar, I surrender my fear over to Christ and face Him.
To face Christ is a powerful statement.
Bold and fearless.
To face Him is an act of complete faith. Faith that no matter what happens, no matter what tragedy or pain you may find yourself in, He can heal you.
Unlike the lies and unfulfilled promises that fear feeds us, Christ heals.
He doesn’t say that He will protect us from pain or heartache. But He does promise to comfort us and to heal us when the wounds and the pain hit.
Christ says in the New Testament:
Matthew 11:28–30
28 “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Our burdens will be heavy. Our fears will drown us if we let them. But that is the key phrase here:
IF WE LET THEM.
Believe it or not, we get to choose how we react to our fears. We can accept them and be taken deep down the rabbit hole of darkness and despair that fear leads you on.
Or we can surrender our fear and face Christ.
As I have chosen to live a life that is bigger than the fear that has entangled my days, I have found that faith and hope are my greatest tools. I have found that even though I am nobody special, and I am only one tiny grain of sand in a world filled with endless amounts of sand; Christ knows me.
I know this, because when I have been in my darkest times, He has healed my deepest wounds. His light saved me from the depths of depression and fear.
And if He knows me- a normal mom, without some extravagant title, than I would suppose-
He knows all of us.
He is just waiting for us to surrender our fear and face Him.
Call To Action:
To step into your greatness, you must surrender all of your fear. In my new book, “The Hidden Gifts Within the Trauma of Sexual Abuse,” I share what I learned from healing and facing my fears. I would love to offer you the first chapter of my book, for free.
Click here to access your free chapter!
And if you want more…follow along with me on Instagram @ Keira Poulsen.
