The past three days have been a struggle for me. While I can generally filter through all of the panic, misinformation, and humor associated with large events, a dark and nasty thing started growing in the pit of my stomach Thursday.
While I’ve been posting and talking about taking necessary precautions but not living in fear, fear is exactly what started budding in my heart. Something about going to a local store and seeing empty shelves shook me a bit more than I would like to admit.
The general spirit of people that surrounded me was one of fear.
So anxious was the tension, you could almost taste it. Suddenly, with a list full of groceries, I desperately felt the need to go home. And so I did.
We spent time outside, I prayed, spent some time in the kitchen, and felt that fear die back down.
When you struggle with anxiety (unknown until I had reached early adulthood) your body has a tendency to jump back into those old ways. With years of support from my patient husband, lots of prayer, diet changes, and techniques learned from my yoga training, I’ve been able to not give over to a spirit of fear for a very long time.
Friday morning we set out to complete our grocery shopping, but again, the spirit of fear took over. We got what we set out for and returned home where I worked towards calming the storm I felt inside my heart.
Both situations occurred when I was faced with large public crowds with people piling things into their carts, and long lines of cars just to get into the parking lot of the store.
While I do believe we were given with the gift of intuition and self preservation, the line in the sand is drawn between being prudent and prepared, and paranoid. Allowing your heart and your mind be consumed with fear is not the life we are called to live.
“But now, this is what the Lord says…Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.”
Isaiah 43:1
Today after the boys laid down for their naps and I finally had a moment to sit down and eat my lunch, I came across a YouTube video from Roots & Refuge farm, where Jessica Sowards speaks towards and almost exact situation I found myself in.
In this video, she tells of a woman watching a man herd sheep down a narrow roadway. He was rough with them and causing them to panic. The woman asked her waitress, “How the shepherd could treat his sheep that way?”
To which her waitress replies, “Oh, that’s not the shepherd. That’s the butcher.” (Paraphrased)
That was so profound for me.
This nagging feeling in my gut isn’t from the Shepherd who calls me his own and has redeemed me. It’s coming from time’s biggest deceiver who is trying to trick us into falling off of the path God has set before us, and move us in a direction of fear and panic.
Towards a mindset where we think only of ourselves and not of our neighbors.
“Fear is the root of so many things that are contrary to the heart of God. Fear is the root of hate, it is the root of rejection.”
Jessica Sowards
It is okay to unplug from social media if the stories are causing you stress.
It’s okay to not watch the nightly news if you’re second guessing your every decision.
It’s okay to avoid the stores for the next few weeks if that is what’s causing turmoil in your heart.
If you are finding yourself drawn towards unhealthy emotions, I would encourage you highly to seek the Lord in prayer and check out the whole video from Roots & Refuge to hear her entire devotional today. It is so very worth it.
I will be focusing on caring for our boys, working in my garden, and doing what I need to do to keep my heart in a place of peace.
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of sound mind”
2 Timothy 1:7