Have You Ever Struggled With Fear?

 

I have, but I’ve come a long way from living with constant fear.

I struggled with fear for a long time before I even knew what to call it. From a teenager I lived with a constant fear of “something bad” happening. As an adult I kept it under wraps and masqueraded it as not being to quick to trust people. As a mom it was being overprotective of my children. But when my children became young adults I became super-fearful that something bad could happen. As each one of them got old enough to pull away from my grip they did, and some things did happened and my fear level hit the roof.

The thoughts I allowed the devil to torment me with were not healthy. 

 At one point my actions became down right sin (see Romans 14:23). It got so bad that I had to face the fact that I had some unresolved issues with fear. I was forced to look back at the root of my fears from things that happened to me in my teen years. 

I’m so thankful that God loves us through our fears and into freedom.

God who is faithful to His word, loved me through my fears. He used my children and what the devil meant for bad to break fear’s grip on me. There were nights I laid awake crying and praying, fighting tormenting thoughts, waiting for a child to come home.
I would get through those nights by repeating over and over,

“No fear exists where His love is. Rather, perfect love gets rid of fear, because fear involves torment. The person who lives in fear doesn’t believe God loves them perfectly” (1 John 4:18).

I knew for sure that God loves me, and as I meditated on His love for me, fear gave way to faith and the tormenting thoughts would always go away. Then came the day when that scripture became mine and I realized that fear is a spirit and no matter what happened in the past or ever will happen God loves me perfectly and completely. And the spirit of fear cannot torment me when I dwell in His love.

I refused fear.

I got in God’s perfect complete love, and I refused to allow fear in. I refused to allow fear to torment me. I refused to think about all the bad that could happen to my children. I pulled those strong holds down — the thoughts that had exalted themselves above what I knew to be true about God (see 2 Corinthians 10:4-5) and replaced them with life giving, faith-filled spoken words.

God’s love was then able washed over those deep places in me where my past experiences had left their mark so that I could be free. 

There are still days when fear knocks at the doors of my mind, then I remember that God loves my children and me, and I don’t let it in. Instead I encourage myself with His word.

If you’ve ever struggled with fear how did God’s love help you overcome?