Relinquish Your Fears

It started like a typical Monday night for me last night. Got the kiddos to bed, got myself ready, caught up on some email, watched a couple episodes of my current show, and then shut off the lights and waited for sleep to overtake me. I waited....and waited....and then it hit. I was reflecting on a conversation I had with my dad just a short time before bed. We were talking about how wonderful my hubs is, and how I truly am blessed to be married to him. (Great conversation;)!)

But as I was laying there, trying to sleep, it crept in. Fear. Anxiety. The enemy. All at once I became paralyzed with fear. Literally. The tears started flowing and it was as if I wasn't even in control of my emotions and body. It was frightening! I was terrified at the thought of losing my husband. I began to beg God to never let me experience that. I told him that I couldn't handle that. I tried talking myself out of this insane fixation, but to no avail. I didn't understand it. I had no idea why I was freaking out and why I couldn't stop it. I knew it had to be an enemy attack. So I went to the only thing I knew would stop it. Scripture. I began to quote it over and over again. "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged; for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9)
And just as quickly as the fear came, a peace took it's place. I knew then it was definitely an attack. But I am so grateful for a God who cares and is there for me. He brought that verse to my mind and I kept repeating the scripture over and over again until sleep overtook me. I don't usually struggle with fear too much, but this was eye-opening to me. The enemy can attack at anytime and we need to be ready and prepared for it. This just challenged me to memorize more scripture so that I can indeed have the tools I need to fight off an enemy attack. The Bible tells us that the enemy "...prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."(1 Peter 5). In order to fight him off, we need to be armed with the proper tools. There's a battle going on people. We have no need to fear though because we serve a God who is lord over it all. So arm yourself :)