The Spirit of Fear

I was reading the other night and the following verse popped out at me.

2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

I read and re-read that a few times. Wow. I think of all of the things in my life that have put so much fear in me over the last few years. I've dealt with a lot of anxiety since the first tornado. When your life gets completely turned upside down, for whatever reason and by whatever means, it's easy to worry and stress and fear things that are out of our control. It makes me think of my daughter. Last week, anytime she got close enough to something she would pull up to her knees. Now she's pulling up and standing. Earlier tonight she stood up in her crib. It made her smile and laugh. She wants to let go and that scares me. I don't want her to fall and get hurt. Amazing - I have fear that she'll get hurt, and she doesn't. She has no fear at the moment. She wants to pull up and let go, and she's not afraid to try.

Wouldn't it be great if we were all like that again? Wouldn't it be great if we could all be fearless when it comes to the things we really want in life. Sometimes the fear of failing keeps us on the sidelines. We convince ourselves that we can't do something, when really we've either convinced ourselves that we're going to fail so why bother or we're too afraid of what others will think if we do try and fail.

I can't swim. I've always said that. The truth is I can't say that I can't swim. I've never tried to learn how, so I don't know that I can't do it. I just don't know how to swim. It's the same with people who tell me that they can't run. Unless they've tried then they don't know that they can't run. I wonder how many amazing talents we all have that are hidden because we're too afraid of failure to give them a shot.

God didn't give us a spirit of fear. My daughter has shown that to me this week. I hope that one day I can lose the fear I've carried since the tornado. And maybe one day I'll learn to swim.