The Cup

When I was younger, I was afraid that a giant strawberry might come into my room at night and attack me.  I remember on one particular night screaming out about the strawberry. I mean, wouldn't you?!  My dad came in, blurry-eyed I'm sure, and he offered me a cup of water.  I drank that water right down and behold:  that cup was a fruit killer.  Seriously.  Well done, dad.

But the big strawberry fear just never went away.  Lest you judge too quickly, this peculiar fear must have come from something my parents let me watch on T.V.  Therefore, my abnormalities are not due to my own strange mind.  Right?  Right?  Somehow, I'm sure that my fear of giant fruit had to be their fault.  Somehow.

OK, maybe it's just my quirky, God-given imagination that led me to believe fruit could end my life.  But in reality I was quite afraid of this non-existant berry.  I mean, I was terrified enough that I had trouble sleeping some nights.  In fact, as I sit here and write I can actually picture the strawberry that eventually made its way into my thoughts and dreams.  It was big.  Like really big, folks.  It took up most of my bedroom and wasn't ripe and cheery; instead, it was a little mushy on top. So as a youngster I feared going to bed at night because of the mushy, oversized strawberry that was waiting to attack. I mean, wouldn't you?!

I considered all the various ways I could fight back when the the fruit decided to make an appearance, but really nothing was going to work.  Nothing!  As a young, defeated fruit fearer, I resigned myself to the fact that I would just have to call for dad and have him fight the strawberry for me.  Or just have him bring me a cup of water.  One or the other.

And so there's that.

Thankfully, I have somewhat relinquished my fear of giant strawberries, but not so fortunately my fear of oversized objects has remained.

I have no rational way to explain this fear, so here is a picture to help me expound:

For clarification purposes, if I was the person on that jet ski, I would die.  In fact, having this picture on the blog makes my heart skip a few beats, but I shall sacrifice for the sake of my readers just so they can be clear on the illogicality of my fear.  At least I did not post a picture of a strawberry (although, if the strawberry was oversized....) 

I've only met one other person in my life who has this same fear.  I've never experienced such a connection before.  Our discovery of this similarity went something like this:  

Me: "Well, I have kind of a weird fear." 

Friend: "Oh, I have a weird fear too."  

Me: "Probably not as weird as mine.  See I'm afraid of oversized...."

Friend: "...objects!  Like really, huge..." 

Me:  "....things!"  

Friend:  "Super big whales!" 

Both:  "Ah!" 

Me:  "Huge buildings and boats and....strawberries!"  

OK, so maybe the strawberry thing put me into a different category, but the commanlity was uncanny.  I'm pretty sure I heard the Michael W. Smith song playing somewhere in the background of our conversation:  "And friends are friends forever when you share such dumb fears..."  Or something like that.  

With my odd fears, I shouldn't have found it strange that my youngest child moved her baby dolls out of her bedroom the other night "because, mom, they might come alive and attack me." 

Duh.  

But I did find it strange, and mostly because seeing this in the hallway in the morning was just, plain creepy.  Poor kid.  The preverbal apple just doesn't fall far from the tree.  

Everyone has fears and anxieties.  Perhaps they're not quite as odd as ours, but we've all got them.  And actually, it's not the "oversized" fears that seem to aggravate day in and day out; rather,  it's the smaller fears that tug regularly and are felt deep within.  It's these small fears that tend to grow uncontrollably and can sound at times like drumming in the ears, though we can appear calm and collected from the outside.  

It's those fears that I hate the most:  What if my mom is hurting and we don't know because she can't communicate with us anymore?  What if that bump on my kid is more than just a bump? What if I get cancer like so many in my family?  What if we make the wrong decision about moving, finances, or our kids schooling?  What if, what if, what if.  

So many "what if's" and so many future possibilities that are simply not my current realities. St. Augustine is quoted time and time again:  "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee," and yet I seem to intuitively rephrase the quote to say something along the lines of: "My heart is restless until someone tells me 'it'll be OK,' or until Netflix or a good book temporarily calms my anxieties." How unfortunate that I regularly rewrite Augustine's quote because it just doesn't work.  

Psalm 16:5 says: 

"Lord, you have assigned me my portion 

and my cup; you have made my lot secure." 

Our shallow cup of fears should be drained with acceptance, since the deep cup that Jesus has given us will never be emptied of His grace, mercy, forgiveness, unconditional love, and the truth that Jesus alone maintains our lot.  Drink deeply of this cup and let the truth of what is in it settle the "what ifs" that so quickly and fiercely invade.  

Through God's Word, I'm reminded daily that to reach for the unknown is to welcome in anxiety.  To sort through all the possibilities of what could, should, might....simply opens the door to the temptation to idolize my own fears as they so easily cloud my view of a perfect, Sovereign Savior.  

Every difficulty that I currently face could have been cause for deep anxiety had I named them as "what if's" in years past.  And yet in the mire of today's stresses, the Spirit supplies the strength and peace needed to trudge forward knowing that nothing is out of the control of the Almighty.  

It's strange, that cup of water that as a child seemed to ever so quickly kill off large and overwhelming fears. 

But there is a cup that calms our fears.  Drink deeply.