Fear

Music.  Y'all, I'm either obsessed or addicted to music, and unashamed of it as well.  Music can hit me where other ways of communication really can't.  I could listen to the same song 1,000 times and still love it.  ("Cinderella" by Steven Curtis Chapman, and "Fireflies" by Owl City are those songs)  Anyway, if I come up with a topic based off a song, please know I'm trying here.  I'm really trying.  But if I don't listen to good music, or sing, or play my uke or keyboard at some point during my day, I go to bed feeling like something is missing.  It's just how I am.  (I'm also relatively good at finding the beat in a song and knowing if an instrument is un-tuned.  Please, if you have an instrument that is currently un-tuned, go tune it!)
Yes, I realize none of that has anything to do with my topic of fear.  I'm getting there.
I've been struggling a lot lately with fear.  I have the (oh, so wonderful) coping mechanism of hiding.  You know how when you want to ignore something, you go do something to forget about it?  I do that all the time.  I hide in books.  Which is totally not healthy at all, and actually hurts me.  But I've finally figured this out, and I'm working on it.
Fear is really not cool.  At all.  It ranges from the healthy fear that guys have of your father, to crippling terror that you have of whatever your biggest nightmare is.  The hard part about fear, is that it can hit you at literally any time.  I have fallen apart under fear at the most random times.  Such as singing with about 100 other people in youth group.  I know, it makes no sense.  But this wave of fear hit me.  I could almost tangibly feel it coming, and started praying immediately to be saved from it.  Luckily, two of my good friends saw that I was crying, and one of them started to pray for me too.  And then the peace and love flooded in, washing away my fear.
You guys, God isn't the one behind fear.  Satan is.  He's the one behind your nightmares.  God isn't asking you to walk through your fear alone.  He knows we can't do it.  And he reminds us regularly.  He reminds me with my friend kindly looking up verses to help me combat it.  He reminds me with the song my mom happens to be playing on her guitar.  One of my favorite songs about fear is: Breakup Song by Francesca Battistelli.  It's awesome.  It's worth going on YouTube or iTunes or Spotify or Pandora or whatever, and listening to it.  The lyrics go something like this:

Fear, you don't own me
There ain't no room in this story
And I ain't got time for you
Telling me what I'm not
Like you know me well guess what?
I know who I am
I know I'm strong
And I am free
Got my own identity
So fear, you will never be welcome here

It's so powerful and a great reminder to me.  I love it.  And you know what?  It's biblical, too!
So, who else needs to be free of fear today?

For God gave us not a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.  

-2 Timothy 1:7

-Ali