Are You Frozen in Fear?
I left my house early one morning for a meeting at my boys’ school, making sure I had more than enough time to make a Starbucks run and a trip into Target. (Hey, if you have to sit through a volunteer meeting, you might as well have coffee and a pretty notebook, right?)
As I ordered my latte (with an extra shot of espresso, thank you very much) in the drive-thru, “No Longer Slaves” by Bethel Worship started playing. I reached over to the radio and turned up the sound as loud as I could without calling attention to this middle-aged mom bumping worship tunes in a drive-thru.
I love that song so much. Since the first time I heard it, I have to fight the urge to belt it out at the top of my lungs. (My kids wince when they hear me sing, but let’s still call it a joyful noise, okay?) As I pulled around the drive-thru, I sang that I was not a slave to fear and that I was a child of God, and without warning the words caught in my throat, this time taking me by surprise on some deeper emotional level than ever before.
“Man, I need that coffee worse than I thought,” I said to myself, trying to explain my emotional response to a song I’d sung a thousand times.
I paid for my coffee and headed to Target, but instead of going in, I ended up sitting in the parking lot with that song on repeat. As the song played, I couldn’t keep myself from crying.
As I sat and sang about being surrounded by the arms of my father, I was totally undone by the song. I ugly cried so hard I had to skip the meeting and drive back home.
But I had no idea why I reacted that way.
It wasn’t until I talked to my friend Amanda later that day that my eyes were finally opened to what had happened in that Target parking lot. As I told her about the song and why I was a no-show at the meeting, I said, “It struck a chord in me like never before. I mean, I just about tear up every time I sing that song, but today was different, and I have no idea why.”
“Alli,” she said, “I think I understand why that song wrecked you. You are completely bound up by fear and worry right now. I see how it weighs you down, and honestly, I don’t know how you live like that. It’s as if you try to make safety your god. You have to decide if you are going to learn to live out from under the rock of fear you carry around.”
I was, of course, appalled and slightly offended. I’m a grown woman. I’m thirty-nine years old, have five children and a happy marriage, and I even wrote a book about living life well. I think I would know if I were completely weighed down by fear and worry. (And if you are wondering if I was feeling a little too big for my britches right then—the answer is yes, yes, I was.)
But Amanda is a good friend (yes, we’re still friends), and someone I turn to for real talk and wise counsel. She is full of wisdom and understanding, and she’s a woman who knows and loves Jesus. When she speaks, I listen. And as much as I hated to say it, she was exactly right.
With my eyes open to this truth, I had to wonder, when had I become so overwhelmed by fear and worry, so overwhelmed, in fact, that I had become blind to it? Were there warning signs along the way I had missed?
My response to the song was my soul declaring it wanted to be free, no longer a slave to fear.
Taken from Fierce Faith by Alli Worthington. Copyright © 2018 by Alli Worthington.
Used by permission of Zondervan. www.zondervan.com. All rights reserved.
Alli Worthington is an author, speaker and the Executive Director of Propel Women. As an executive and entrepreneurial coach, Worthington helps individuals, small business owners and Fortune 500 companies be more successful. Her no-nonsense, guilt-free take on motherhood, parenting and balance has led to appearances on The Today Show and Good Morning America. She lives outside Nashville with her husband, Mark, their five sons, and a pampered rescued dog. You can connect with Alli at AlliWorthington.com.
Photograph © Eye for Ebony, used with permission
