fear, courage, and woah

1. 2 woah's: My birthday is the best day of the year! (thanks to my friends who love me)
2. (2nd woah): My mom is going to Peru this fall on a short-term mission trip which will provide wheelchairs and medical services (from physical therapists) for those who need them. She had to raise $2300 for the trip...she wrote some letters...God provided more than $2300 in 2 short weeks...2 WEEKS...TWO, just 2...folks, what we have here is God-the-provider (again)!

Now on to the fear and courage part...
I hate to admit it, but I have a bit of an issue with fear...some may say my personality tends to be fearful...by that I mean that I have been or am afraid of many, many, many things. Things like the dark, the bad guys of the world, failing, being "stuck" somewhere, scary movies (to the extent that I don't watch em), being in crowds, having to start a conversation with people I don't know, sometimes having to start a conversation with people I do know, being awkward, my brothers never taking up God's offer of life, rides that free fall at amusement parks, etc. etc. etc. Maybe in fact there are only a few things that I positively know that I am NOT afraid of: going places I haven't been, eating new food, being dead (which is different than dying), and being by myself (even including going to a movie by myself or eating in a restaurant by myself).
So I have fought these fearful tendencies for as long as I can remember...I hate fear, hate it with a passion. Fortunately, with God's help, I have had many a victory over various fears but there are always so many more to conquer. This summer I have thought very hard about the idea of courage - just what does that mean? What is courage? For some reason, I thought it was the absence of fear (bad news for us fearful folk)...
One of the books I read (The Dream Giver) talks a bit about fear and courage - "...God rarely makes our fear disappear. Instead, He asks us to be strong and take courage. What is courage? As Ordinary (the main character) discovered, courage is not the absence of fear; rather, it's choosing to act in spite of the fear. You could say that without fear, you can't have genuine courage. When you do act in courage, you discover that fear doesn't have to stop you. You see that what you thought were your limits are more like starting points. To take courage, you have to decide to go forward anyway."
In the beginning of the book, Ordinary has to walk through a sort-of wall of fear. It is very hard to even get near this wall, but once he makes it through, ahh, relief and more strength for the future.
This summer I decided to take on my fear of social situations...this fear is absolutely ridiculous but nonetheless often overwhelming and I generally cave to it. God had been prompting me to begin to take care of this for a long time and something someone said to me pushed me finally to the edge...really, I let it grow for far too long. First step: walk through walls of fear regarding situations with people I know and enjoy (aka Friends). It turns out that once you walk through one wall, the others really do begin to become a little more transparent, a little easier to get through (at least in that area). Second step: work on talking to people. Mission: find somebody sitting alone at church, sit with her, talk to her (aka be friendly). So far, 2 weeks I have found somebody alone to sit with and be friendly to and it has been so very good. Partly because my mission distracted me from emotional things that were very very hard to deal with, partly because I felt good about being friendly to 2 girls who haven't been to First B before, partly because walking through walls that once seemed made of steel makes you want to dance with joy.
I say none of this to "toot my own horn" - only because I want to encourage my fearful friends that I know are out there. I don't know why some people are fearless, some in between, and some paralyzed by fear, I only know that being paralyzed is awful and I hate it. The good news is that we're not in this alone - we can still run and hide under God's wings when we've taken that first hard step into thin air. He reminds us that we can be strong if we'll put our hands in his and keep stepping.
The battle will last my whole life but I'm less afraid now that I'll never be victorious because I can find some courage when I choose to act in spite of fear...and that is good, good news.