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From Fear to Peace: Three Truths to Fight Fear

June 02, 2019 by Amy Parsons in Family, Gospel, Marriage, Motherhood, Prayer, Scripture

I sat in my car as monsoon rains poured down on our little island in the East China Sea, while my husband was on the other side of the world, preaching at his mother’s funeral. 

A few years prior, ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) set in, ravaging her young and vibrant body. 

I realized that the memorial service was just underway. Anguish forced its way up my throat and out, in body-shaking sobs. 

Fear and anxiety accompanied my grief. My mother in law’s life was ended not just by ALS, but actually by FALS—Familial ALS. Her father was also taken by it nine years prior. When she was diagnosed, we had the crushing realization that my husband has a 50% chance of having FALS. And if he does, then so do our children.

Currently, there is no treatment, cure, or prevention for ALS. Victims are captive to their bodies, which deteriorate while their minds stay healthy. After three to five years, they die from being unable to breathe or swallow. 

I didn’t just weep for the loss of my sweet mother-in-law, or for the sadness that my husband bore without me. I wept over the “what-ifs”. And I begged the Lord to not let them be so. 

From Grief to Fear

Five years later, the anxiety that arrived the day of her death still threatens to take hold. I can easily spiral into a frenzy of “what-ifs”. 

Grasping for reassurance, I’ve read the scientific research and the stories of other FALS-affected families. I’ve put my kids and husband through diets and regimens in hopes of staving off what can feel inevitable. I’ve wrung my hands and rechecked statistics. We even briefly considered genetic testing. 

Yet deep down I know what Christians need to do when they are afraid. We need to rest in the Lord himself. More than prevention, more than science, more than our best efforts—in the face of what could be, we need a peace that surpasses understanding (Philippians 4:7). And we need a renewing of our mind (Romans 12:2). Both are ours by God’s Spirit if we only seek him and ask. 

The Word of God and the Spirit of God stand ready to equip and empower believers in the battle against fear. Both are living and active. The Holy Spirit resides in us, giving us the strength and grace to fight our fears afresh each day. He also reminds us of truth when we wander into fear (John 14:26), helping us to wield the Word of God, our offensive weapon (Ephesians 6:17). 

From Fear to Peace: Three Truths to Fight Fear

I want to share with you three biblical truths God’s Spirit arms me with when I’m tempted to be afraid.

1. My life is not my own.

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

When I surrendered to the Lord as a freshman in college, these words changed my whole perspective. I awakened to the reality that my life, my body, and my future did not actually belong to me. The Lord created me, and ransomed me with his precious blood; therefore, I belong to him and live for him (1 Peter 1:18-19).

In the years since then, Paul’s words inspired by God’s Spirit have sunk deeper into my soul: “For by him all things were created…through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16). My very existence is by God, through God, and for God. I am not untethered, required to conjure up my own meaning, purpose, and future. The Lord has already done that.

For the Lord is the one 

who made the world and everything in it… he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind…having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. (Acts 17:24-27)

God himself determined when and where I would live. The Lord set me here in this very family with these genes, so that I may seek him and perhaps feel my way toward him and find him (Acts 17:27). 

May the the things that cause us to fear lead us to seek the Lord and find him.

2. God will never leave me nor forsake me.

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

The fact that God promised this gives me tremendous courage. My kids and I have memorized Psalm 46. Together we rehearse that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (v.10, emphasis added). I know him who walks with me—that his character is good and trustworthy and sovereign.

And I know what he has already done for me in Christ: He was forsaken on my behalf, hung on a cross in my place, endured wrath from the Father for me. Because we know him and we trust these promises from him, we can face any future. 

Triumph in God’s promise to never leave or forsake you:

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

3. Even if…yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

Finally, I find rest from fear in the words of Habakkuk: 

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength… (Habakkuk 3:17-19)  

Even if this dreaded disease visits us again—even if I am forced to walk through this particular valley of the shadow of death, I will rejoice in the Lord. 

We can rejoice precisely because he is the God of our salvation, because he has already given himself over to us. More than the gifts he gives, Jesus, the Giver, is our gift. Nothing—not sickness, not suffering, not loss—can separate us from this gift. 

Behold, All Things Will Be Made New

When I think back on that sad day, when my grief returns and fear threatens to well up within me, God’s Spirit reminds me that my life is not my own, that God will never leave me nor forsake me, and that even if the worst comes, I will be able to take joy in the God of my salvation. 

He is also the God who says, “Behold I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5). God promises to those who have faith in Jesus Christ that, 

“He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

One day soon, and then forever, ALS will be no more. Whatever you may fear—school shootings, car accidents, separation from loved ones, the loss of a child, extended suffering at the end of life—it will not remain. Perfect love will cast it all out. You and I will be with our Lord, and scary diagnoses and suffering will be no more.

Written by Jen Oshman. This article originally appeared here, at Unlocking the Bible. Shared with permission.

June 02, 2019 /Amy Parsons
fear, peace, health, anxiety
Family, Gospel, Marriage, Motherhood, Prayer, Scripture
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Fear, My News Feed, and Psalm 46

May 19, 2019 by Amy Parsons in Prayer, Scripture

Anyone else feeling prone to panic these days? I watched CCN 10 (a 10-minute global news show for students) with my daughters this morning and it had my stomach in knots. The photos from the earthquake in Mexico were heart wrenching. The impending doom for Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria was sickening. And the update on threats coming from Kim Jong-Un in North Korea was downright scary.  

These calamities and potential catastrophes feel close. I’m traveling to South America via Mexico this fall and the earthquake tempts me to consider staying home instead. I’ve been in enough earthquakes in Japan to feel paralyzed by the thought of going through more. And North Korea’s threat of an electromagnetic attack by detonating a nuclear bomb almost directly above Colorado has me feeling very vulnerable in the middle of this continent. Our planet’s current natural disasters and political unrest are almost too much. 

I am so thankful the girls and I memorized Psalm 46 last week. I can’t encourage you enough to do the same. Right now I need the power of God’s words in this Psalm to re-center me in the face of fear. Without the constant reminders of his power and protection, readily available in my stream of consciousness, I would be tempted to despair.  

And not only that, but my kids are looking to me for how they should respond to the news, as well. Their eyes go from the screen to my face and back with each story. They want to see how I’m processing what I’m seeing—how I handle it. I need to be ready to respond with the Word of God for their sakes and mine. Neither their hope nor mine will be satisfied in geography, or diplomacy, or statistics. I want our hope, our refuge, our strength to be in God alone. 

As we pour over Psalm 46 we can see Mexico in verse 2. We can see Puerto Rico in verse 3. We can see North Korea in verse 6. And we can see the Lord our God in verses 7-11. We can turn our sights on history and “behold the works of the Lord.”  We can remind ourselves with each news reel that when the Lord “utters his voice, the earth melts.” 

No matter what comes, our God will be exalted in the nations. He is over all the Earth. And we have the City of God (verse 4) to look forward to! This world is not the end of the story. Come what may, we Christians will indeed join the Most High in his holy habitation.  

Like Peter instructed the early church, I want to “set [my] hope fully on the grace that will be brought to [us] at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13).  Jesus and his grace are my only hope. I want to tuck reminders of that hope in my mind and heart and freely transfer them to my daughters in times of uncertainty.  

 

Psalm 46

1 God is our refuge and strength,

    a very present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,

    though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

3 though its waters roar and foam,

    though the mountains tremble at its swelling. 

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

    the holy habitation of the Most High.

5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;

    God will help her when morning dawns.

6 The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;

    he utters his voice, the earth melts.

7 The Lord of hosts is with us;

    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

8 Come, behold the works of the Lord,

    how he has brought desolations on the earth.

9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;

    he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;

    he burns the chariots with fire.

10 “Be still, and know that I am God.

    I will be exalted among the nations,

    I will be exalted in the earth!”

11 The Lord of hosts is with us;

    the God of Jacob is our fortress.

 

You may enjoy meditating on this Psalm through song, as well. The famous hymn “A Mighty Fortress is our God” was written by Martin Luther in the 1500s and is based on the words of Psalm 46. With the 500th anniversary of the Reformation upon us next month, it would be a timely and life-giving anthem to have at the ready. Here is a helpful history of the hymn from Tim Challies and my favorite rendition of it by HeartSong at Cedarville University. 

Originally written and published by Jen Oshman. Used with permission.

May 19, 2019 /Amy Parsons
fear, news, economy, politics
Prayer, Scripture
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Psalm 40

April 21, 2019 by Amy Parsons in Scripture

Psalm 40 dropped a truth in my lap in the span of three little words. It starts with an example of patience and went on to list several promises of being heard by God and being saved by God and being protected by him as well. Then, in verse two, it says, “He set my feet on solid ground.”

Did you catch that? “He set my feet…” I don’t know about you, but my whole life I have read this scripture with the emphasis on the end—on the solid ground part. And I was grateful. Solid ground sounds about where I need to be. A safer place than sandy shores or sinking mud, which are the two places I seem to land when left to my own devices, or when I let fear take over. So, at least once a week.

It’s about different things, but it’s the same old fear. I am fearful to be known. I have fear my kids will turn crazy once they get enough freedom. Somedays I am scared I will never be healed. Other times fear comes in when I think too deeply about what my husband is looking at on his phone. I mean, I think it’s on the up-and-up, but I don’t really know. It could be anything. I go through panic and extreme faith like I am on an endless roller coaster. I don’t want to function this way, but I am human, and my imagination is too big for my own good.

It’s in these chaotic spaces that God nudges me in scripture or through prayer and reminds me I am not a pawn—moved here and there at the enemy’s whim. I am actually a daughter of the most-high priest; a warrior meant to change a nation as I take each thought captive and replace it with God’s truths. A woman after God’s own heart. Made in God’s image and capable of bringing glory to God with my story.

So, while solid ground is really important, what really matters here is that he sets my feet. God sets my feet. He pulls me up and out and closer to him and sets my feet exactly when and where he wants me.

This psalm goes on to make another amazing claim. In verse three, it says that others will be changed because of what I allow God to do in my life. I have to choose to let him place me, but then he takes care of the rest—including the parts that bring others to his kingdom because he’s miraculous in my story. And isn’t that the point of everything we go through—good and bad? For God to be glorified, so others are drawn to him.

Take a look around and ask God, “where have you set me? Am I open to letting you use my story any way you see fit? Lord, show me where I need to surrender a little more. Help me set fear behind me and choose you who are the same today as you were yesterday and will be tomorrow. Set me feet as you see fit.” Amen

Written for Strength & Song by Shontell Brewer.

April 21, 2019 /Amy Parsons
Psalm, fear, trust
Scripture
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