My Christian Diary

Hello All, Grace and Peace be to you from our LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.

I heard the buzz about a book called "The Shack" by WM. Paul Young". So I ordered it and I am in the middle of reading it. It is a bit strange! In the story, The GODHEAD (GOD the FATHER, GOD the SON, GOD the HOLY SPIRIT) are represented as 3 women. I have not finished the book yet, but so far it is a bit on the strange side. My point is not to focus on the book, but just one page of it, which I thought to be profound. You tell me what you think.

This is an excerpt of "The Shack"...

(JESUS is talking to Mack, a character in the story)
Mack, do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?
Again Mack stopped and thought. It was true. He spent a lot of time fretting and worrying about the future, and in his imagination it was usually pretty gloomy and depressing, if not outright horrible. And JESUS was also correct in saying that in Mack's thoughts of the future, GOD was always absent.

"Why do I do that? " asked Mack.
"It is your desperate attempt to get some control over something you can't. It is impossible for you to take power over the future because it isn't even real, nor will it ever be real. You try to play GOD, imagining the evil that you fear becoming reality, and then you try to make plans and contingencies to avoid what you fear."

"So why do I have so much fear in my life?"

"Because you don't believe. You don't know that we love you. The person who lives by his fears will not find freedom in my love. I am not talking about rational fears regarding legitimate dangers, but imagined fears, and especially the projection of those into the future. To the degree that those fears have a place in your life, you neither believe I am good nor know deep in your heart that I love you . You sing about it, you talk about it, but you don't know it."

I do not know about you, but that sounds like me. I have a huge stronghold from my childhood that has grownup with me. Bad things happened to me when I was a child, things that should not happen to a child. Now, I fear those things will happen to my children and I am very over protective. I do not want to put my kids in a bubble. I want them to live, but my fear is very real.

I do believe in GOD and I do know HE loves me, but how do I replace the fear with faith in this area, when this fear is so paralyzing? I pray about it, but it is always there with me. It is so bad that when I am at the store and I hear a child cry, in my mind, I go to the place of pain for me. I assume that the crying child is being hurt and I have to close my ears. Rationality tells me that the child wants out of the cart or wants a toy or candy they can not have and is throwing a tantrum, but my imagination takes me to my childhood pain. It drives me crazy!

If you suffer with a fear, I believe the first step in being free is to acknowledge it. I have to tell you the truth this was not easy for me to open up about.

What I want is to stop my imagination of fear, and put JESUS there in its place. I want to see JESUS there with me, not the childhood pain.

I know healing is on the way, I just feel it, and when healing comes for me, I will be SET FREE FOREVER! As I think about it all I just sit here and breathe a huge sigh of the soul.

GOD bless you all.