Tear Down the Fences (Say No To Fear)
Full disclosure, I wrote this blog before I even had a domain name.
Just a few moments before I began writing, I was faced with the technical aspects of website building and found myself paralyzed with indecision. There are so many things to think about - domain hosts and web hosts and plenty of other lingoes I barely understand. In an effort to keep some momentum, I turned to the familiar black and white of my word processor to write my way through, a comforting reminder of the dream in my heart and my resolve to see it come alive.
My life is a story, and I am meant to tell it.
That’s something I know for sure. It’s magnetic, a necessity deep in my bones, the words climbing from the corners of my mind and coming to life on the page, dancing wildly with hope and abandon and without a care for the judgments of others. Oh, to be one of those words, but words don’t have feelings — they are feelings — unashamed of what they’ve been created to be. That’s the tricky bit about being human, I think, sharing our truest stories makes us vulnerable, and my goodness is that a terrifying, beautiful thing to be.
Much of my adult life has been spent seeking a logical brand of security out of a fear of the wild where my dreams roamed free. I was afraid of a world without a structure, favoring one that could be easily predicted and controlled. The wilderness of my dreams felt indulgent and uncertain, impulsive and untamed. In due time, I became the queen of, “That’s not a rational decision,” and, “You have a responsibility to uphold,” and on and on. I built a fence around my field of duty and pragmatism, painted it white, and endorsed it as truth. It took me years to realize my fence was built in response to fear.
Fear of failure.
Fear of disappointing others.
Fear of regret.
Fear of financial struggle.
There’s more, but I trust you know fear as well as I do. When I lived within the boundaries of my fence, I didn’t have to reckon with fear because I never took any risks, I only had to watch it lurking in the distance among the dreams I felt I could never really have.
Lately, I’ve been thinking, maybe we have to wake up to dream, recognizing the boundaries we’ve placed around ourselves and examining them with the clear eyes that acompany new mornings. Maybe, in that awakening, a new resolve will bubble up, a willingness to tear down the fences we built to keep fear at bay because we are no longer willing to sacrifice the wild dreams waiting for us. And maybe it is in those first steps we will feel the fullness of faith in a new way, a palpable hope for what has been prepared for us.
And so, with clear eyes, a new resolve, and a leveled fence, I plan to tell you stories of struggle and triumph, of God’s goodness and my questions, and, someday, I will tell you stories of dreams that came true, too.
