Fear or Faith

[krafty]

Fear knocked. Faith answered. No one was there.

That saying is a source of strength for me. Fear ran my life--fear of the unknown, of being rejected, hurt, ridiculed, fear of nameless worries, and most of all the what ifs. I turned from a sensible girl to a quivering mass of nothing, incapable of making decisions.

Fear knocked with questions like: What if he doesn't come home? What if he drinks? What is she smokes pot, takes drugs? What is they sneak around? What is she wrecks the car? What is he drinks and he's supposed to be watching the children?

Some of these questions were legitimate. Somewhere I read that fear is nothing more or less than distorted faith in the negative things of life and the evils that might happen to us. I began to realize that most of my fears came from dwelling on negative things. I then read in One Day At A Time in Al-Anon, "Granted these things can happen, but when they don't we have put ourselves through needless suffering and made ourselves even less prepared to deal with them if they should come."

Finally light bulbs turned on. These questions came to my mind: Who am I hurting? Myself. Am I enjoying it? No. What can I do about it? Thing I was learning from the meetings began to make sense.

So I had to put what I had learned into practice. Just for today, I will not project. I'll bring my life into this one day and will think positive rather than negative thoughts. I will deal with things as they come, and not waste my time worrying about stuff that may not happen. I will quit punishing myself.

Faith Answered. If I have enough faith, fear will go away. Where do I get the strength? The Third Step. More light bulbs in my head. If I was to believe, there would be risks to take. Risks like letting him handle the money, allowing him to live his life as he sees fit, asking a beloved child to move out of the house. And after each risk my feeling inside was so much better. Then there was more belief in my Higher Power and less fear in me.

No One Was There Fear leaves me when I rely on my Higher Power, try to live one day at a time and don't project into the future. I don't succeed all the time but for the major part of each day I do. Fear is controlled so long as I keep a conscious contact with God.

FORUM FAVOURITES -- VOL 4 -- APRIL 4