By Lisa S. Tarno

It’s been a year! How do I mean that? Good? Bad? In totality both. I have been hyper focused on health and injury stuff because I’ve had to be. Normally, I am a go-to-the-doctor-once-a-year for the free physical but this year has been excessive for me with alarm bells going off left and right! It started with a ridiculous pickle ball injury that left me with medial and lateral torn meniscus. One thing after another with this test and that test…and two insurance deductibles met in one year…you get the picture. It’s been a year! My latest seemingly attention seeking injury was of all things, golfing! I somehow injured my hand… it’s not fractured but definitely sprained. I think I am back to needing bubble wrap around me as my husband stated from the previous article. These are just the injuries…I’ll spare the health related stuff that has sent me scurrying to this doctor and that.

As I was doing my stretching and prayer time this morning, I felt fear with an upcoming test that I am not looking forward to tomorrow. I literally said to the Lord, “I am so afraid…this fear is real!” “Please, Lord, take this fear from me and give me Your peace.” Then as I was reading the Bible, I happened upon this verse in the Passion Version: “So be made strong even in your weakness by lifting up your tired hands in prayer and worship. And strengthen your weak knees, for as you keep walking forward on God’s paths all your stumbling ways will be divinely healed.” Hebrews 12:12-13

WOW! If there was ever a verse tailored for my circumstance right now it was this one. It addressed both my tired hand and weak knee and gave me hope for divine healing going forward. And then another obscure verse blessed me, “Say to the anxious and fearful, ‘Be strong and never afraid. Look, here comes your God! He is breaking through to give you victory!…” Isaiah 35:4 Okay then…I will receive that and take it to the bank!

I am being very real here. I have walked with the Lord for over 45 years of my life and have my ups and downs and have had my faith grown in some very dark places. I admit that I can still feel fearful at times…even anxious. The truth is that we always will no matter how long we walk with the Lord because we are human and there will be things that are fear inducing. I have taught many women over the years that you are allowed to have IFO’s (Initial Freak Outs). The proof that you are growing spiritually is when the processing time between the IFO and Peace becomes less and less time! You see there is grace for us. Just because we have had a long spiritual journey doesn’t mean that we arrive to some unachievable state of nothing ever messing up our hair…Ghandi-like-unfettering, or some other image of being unaffected.

I believe our personalities lend to this equation as well. I am still amazed at a phlegmatic personality that lends itself to a more peaceful, unmoved, even-Steven way of life. I am NOT like that. For that person, perhaps they are more inclined to appear more spiritually mature by not being afraid, but to that point, why then does God’s Word say over 365 times “Do not fear”?  I like my understanding of it better, because we are human and experience human emotions, and we are compared to the most fearful animals after all, sheep! There’s hope for us. 

Tomorrow’s medical test is almost upon me. I do have faithful friends praying for me. I end this article in the unknown zone.