I remember it as clearly as I write this. I was twelve years old, and I was scarred.
I had this dream, the first of many nightmares that I remember, in which systematically everyone I loved was ripped out of my life in gruesome and terrible ways. My family was killed off in different ways, moments apart from each other, and I was helpless, and could do nothing but watch.
I've had nightmares as long as I can remember. Dreams of mine more often than not, whenever I remember them, regardless of how they start, end terribly. I have countless recollections of one awful nightmare after another, and while I've learned how to handle them, at twelve, it was a completely different ballgame. I woke up scarred. Not in the night terror sense. I didn't wake up screaming or crying. I was petrified, and couldn't move being stricken with that kind of fear.
But it's odd. I've noticed that fear has a much different meaning these days than it did for me back then, although what I'm afraid of really hasn't. It just manifests itself in different fashions. We all know that terrible "boogieman, monster in the closet" kind of fear. The one that later on down the road we would pursue with horror films. But somewhere down the road, fear seemed to change, didn't it? It seemed to become less of what goes bump in the night, and more about what goes wrong in the day. I know some people have fears like snakes or spiders still, but for me fear is something completely different, and after talking to a dear friend, I seemed to notice that today.
I look back at those nightmares, and it was a combination of things that I was afraid of. The sheer imagery of seeing killed in that way was awful, but deeper than that, it was losing everything that I love. I know this is a major anxiety of many people, which I would actually venture to say every person, but it is the one thing in life, that one big fear that haunts me. In those dreams, it was physical. Seeing them all die. But nowadays, it's more the "What the hell did I just do?" kind of fear. That walking on eggshells feeling that seems to dictate my every thought. And I've been able to see that this fear has roots in many places.
Today I just filed for more college loans. I'm even more in debt. Awesome. I always get this tingling, nail-biting feeling when talking to the bank on the phone, because I am further driving home the pressure of getting a job to support a family (God willing) out of college. I love and hate this, because in one sense, it keeps me accountable, but on the other sense, there is a fear of letting down and losing the family that I don't even have yet. It may not be as gruesome as that dream when I was 12, but it is every bit as petrifying. Because in those dreams I was helpless. In real life, it would be my fault.
So, one must wonder, where do we go with a fear hitting us like a freight train? I can think of other things, and give my self a quick fix, a sort of mental bandaid, and be on my way. But I'm not fixing the problem here, I am only running from my fears. Thinking about it, what is the opposite of fear? For the nightmares, it would seem courage would be a respectable answer, but it doesn't seem to help a whole lot. A guy with courage can jump out of a plane with no parachute, but he will still end up as a splat stain on a sidewalk. For me, I would say that the remedy for fear would be peace. Peace is knowing the fears and anxieties of life, whatever they may be, and handing them over to Christ. When looking up peace, I found John 14:47. I smiled big at this:
"Peace I leave you, and peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid."
Two birds, one awesome, God shaped stone. It's that peace that we find in Christ that pushes us through it. That peace that says "I'm terrified Lord, help me out here". Because when we ask for His help, He gives it to us, and when we need Him, which is always, He is there. Peace is knowing that there is a reason we are jumping out of the plane with no parachute, and trusting that God will not let us down. So why should we worry?
I end with a ridiculous thought. In the process of writing this, a song came to my head; one I haven't thought of in ages. It's from veggietales. It says something like "God is bigger than the boogieman. He's bigger than godzilla or the monsters on TV. God is bigger than the boogieman, and He's watching after you and me.
If that isn't the simple truth, than what is?
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