Afraid of Fear

Frankenmuth News lays sprawled on the breakfast table, and for once I pick up the leaves of gray paper to read over hot oats.

Why I decided to read my father's hometown paper, I will not know.
Eyes fell on the "Reflections on Faith" corner and I saw the topic and inwardly sighed, Here we go again.

Fear
Fear, that entity sewn within every devotional I pick up.
Fear, the sermon topic advertised in black and white on the church sign.

I believed for a time I was above that fear thing.
Like a child sputtering "I am not afraid!" trying to prove themselves, perhaps believing it for a moment, reassuring the self of what was not true.

How utterly wrong I was.

Did I not say, "For I am to know nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified."?

Knowing the cross is knowing surrender, which for the morning spent pouring over the newspaper of a town I had been to just a few times in my life, meant surrendering a fear of being afraid.

Admitting to a Savior that I carry fear, of all shapes and sizes, sneaky creeping in the heart that was not humble.
Approaching the cross with His humility, letting go, collapsing with a grotesque monster to offer the God who offers me a lightened burden, an easy yolk.

To know that knowing Christ crucified means knowing no fear,
 means adorning a brightly lit humble heart and becoming unearthed and uncovered to rise with the Lord who knows and loves anyway.