Do you have fears?
Did you ever have a fear, so great, that had made you stumbled and paralyzed?
Do you think you have a kind of fear that is impossible to be cured or treated?
Is it a phobia or something else?
Who has no fear in this world?
My answer in the last question is none. There's no such thing as fearless individual (based on my own opinion). Even the bravest warrior on earth has his or her own set of fears, which somehow refrains each person to fulfill each dream and do essential things to survive and win in life.
Well if you will ask me, I have few morbid fears and a lot of small fears. I have this crazy, rather extreme fear of blood, fresh blood. I’m not aware of it before. It has not sunk in to my system then, until one day, I encountered its manifestations. I tell you, it turned my whole world upside down. Is it exaggeration? No. This is exactly how I would describe the dizziness or discomfort that I felt when I got the chance to have a perfect view of human blood filed up in tubes during a drug test in College. Thanks to my concerned classmates who caught me when I was about to collapse. Hhmm. . . With that, I actually discovered the reason behind one event during our Biology class in high school when I totally refused to dissect a frog and left the job to my group mates while I end up finishing our report to compensate. So that's it. I chose not to pursue a medical course when I can because of that strange fear. Fear of blood scientifically known as hemophobia.I really have so many fears in me, which I know might also be the same fears that most people in this planet is experiencing.
We all have fears in us. That's part of who are, being human. Fear is something that we can't control. It’s hard to manage and it’s difficult to handle. However, a fear can be treated according to some experts, but it depends on the willingness of a person.
We all have fears in us. That's part of who are, being human. Fear is something that we can't control. It’s hard to manage and it’s difficult to handle. However, a fear can be treated according to some experts, but it depends on the willingness of a person.
Actually, Hemophobia is not really my greatest fear even though I’m struggling on it until now. My worst fear even when I was a child is what you called Thanatophobia, the fear of death. There are two things I fear about it.
- First, is the idea of death taking me to the unknown. I have this thinking in the past about death when I simply don't know what will happen to me after I held my last breath. I don’t believe in life after death when I was young at the time to understand the truth about it. I have a different belief then. A belief that when people die, they have to sleep for a long time oblivious of everything until the time of resurrection comes which no one knows when. Or even if there's really life after death, I’m not sure whether I will go to heaven or hell.
- Second thing I fear about death are the circumstances that might surround it like pain, suffering and grief. It gives me chill and enables the butterflies to go around my stomach just by mere thinking about it.
Time goes by, still my Hemophobia remains (I think it’s not serious to be treated though). But something happened to my Thanatophobia, an amazing change, a change that has not come on my own, an unexpected treatment to my fear that had become an incurable disease if not because of the Divine Intervention and a compassionate soul that I encountered. The unknown has been revealed. Although I’m still afraid of the circumstances that associate it, I started to believe that my fear of death has been conquered.
Do you want to know how? I'll tell you the story of how the Divine Intervention and the compassionate soul have prescribed a treatment to my illness. It happened one warm afternoon, and I’m having this spiritually fruitful conversation with a person I met in a youth organization I had just joined a week earlier. The person asked me this question: "Where do you think you'll go when you die?" My answer: "Uhmm . . . I don’t know, perhaps I’ll be unconscious for a long time while waiting for the judgment day and God will resurrect my dead body or I might go to heaven, because I’m kind somehow. “You probably want to digest my answer. Where in the world did I get that answer? Do you think my answer is funny? No. It’s ridiculous. Let’s just forget where I grasped that principle. Anyway, despite my queer idea, that person still manages to gather enough patience in explaining to me the serious answer to the mind buggling question, the answer that had literally changed my perspective about death. Do you want to know what the person told me? The person told me the truth about Jesus.
Surprised? What's the connection of Jesus when it comes to my fear anyway? That person shared to me something about faith. That death was already conquered by Jesus. Faith in God through Christ will fulfill the promise of eternal life. That when you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior and surrender your life to God, death in this world will mean starting another life in heaven where death will exists no more.
Surprised? What's the connection of Jesus when it comes to my fear anyway? That person shared to me something about faith. That death was already conquered by Jesus. Faith in God through Christ will fulfill the promise of eternal life. That when you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior and surrender your life to God, death in this world will mean starting another life in heaven where death will exists no more.
The conversation that I had with that person along with my response had not only created a positive impact to the major fear that I have which is death, but it course through some other areas in my life and all other fears that comes with it: fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of being left alone, fear to be left behind, fear of emotional and physical pain, fear of suffering and all other fears.
I developed a different kind of fear that knocks out all my other fears. The most powerful fear of all. . . Fear of God, which can also be translated as faith. Faith along with the grace of God is undeniably considered as the only cure or treatment to our earthly fears that rotten our purpose in this world. A kind of fear that you would want to instill deep within you until it grows mightily and gives out the fruit of love and trust to our heavenly Father. A fear that will defy all odds and had already conquered death itself . . .
I developed a different kind of fear that knocks out all my other fears. The most powerful fear of all. . . Fear of God, which can also be translated as faith. Faith along with the grace of God is undeniably considered as the only cure or treatment to our earthly fears that rotten our purpose in this world. A kind of fear that you would want to instill deep within you until it grows mightily and gives out the fruit of love and trust to our heavenly Father. A fear that will defy all odds and had already conquered death itself . . .
Proverbs 10:27
New International Version (NIV)
27 The fear of the Lord adds length to life,
but the years of the wicked are cut short.
but the years of the wicked are cut short.
I know, in this life, I still need to deal with fear. . . It will find its way in me and through me whenever it can. But the difference now is that I already have faith that will block its way and will eventually stop fear to paralyze me . . . and with Jesus in my heart and the presence of God, I know there's victory over all my fears. It’s not my power but the power of God that will crush and destroy even my strongest fear. It’s already trampled at the cross.
Psalm 23
Psalm 23
A psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
You know what, if there are factors that exhibit fear in you, I am urging you to seek treatment that can only be found through Jesus Christ.
John 14:6
New International Version (NIV)
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 16:33
New International Version (NIV)
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Then the Father found a cure to mankind's fear. . . . Without hesitation, a life was sacrificed . . . the death of the Son saved the world . . . from eternal damnation . . . to everlasting sanctification. . .
*ACEMIT* 09/12/2012
