Overcoming FearSample

Let’s Talk About Fear

By Linda Steppenbacker and the Help Club for Moms

Hey Friend, I want to talk to you about something that is shouting in our faces all day long and making itself known in the most obvious way. You’ve likely felt its pressure on you for all of your life.

This thing is fear.

I don’t know if you’ve given much thought to fear – to exactly what it is and what it means for your life, how you are responding to it, or how God wants you to react to it. Today, we’re going to begin diving into this topic, and I’m going to share some truths from God’s Word that I have lived out in my life in a very real way.

First of all, I want to provide a little bit of backstory to you.

In March of 2019, my husband went in for what we thought was a routine MRI. He had developed migraines about a year prior and had finally gone to see a neurologist. As a standard precaution, the neurologist recommended an MRI. He didn’t think much of it and even remarked that we would probably be wasting money on that scan. We weren’t concerned, and we certainly had no idea what was in store for us that Monday morning when we met with the neurologist. That was the morning that my husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor on his brainstem.

Now, if you don’t know anything about brain anatomy (which I did not), you may have no idea of the seriousness of this discovery. The brainstem is the most sensitive part of the brain. It controls all major functions of your body, and it is the most difficult part of the brain to get to, as it is located deep within the brain. It is, in the words of one of our surgeons, the most valuable real estate in the brain. It had been invaded by a tumor – and a sizable one at that. And just like that, my world came crashing down.

During those next two and a half years, just as Psalm 23 says, I walked through the valley of the shadow of death and overcame fear because God was with me. But I truly had to work at it, laboring to enter that rest (Hebrews 4:11). And in that hard place, I have learned so many invaluable lessons that I would not have learned any other way. You see, just as he says about himself in his Word, God truly is good, and he is good all the time. We’re going to delve deeper into the study of fear and how to overcome it in the following days.

Prayer for today: Father, I pray that today, you will open the eyes of my heart. Speak to me as I read through this devotional. Give me a new understanding of the Scriptures as I read. Make me sensitive to your Holy Spirit as he speaks truth to me in the following days about fear, about you, and about trusting you. Expose fearful narratives in my life that you want to change. Thank you for the ways that you have given us to break free of fear. Thank you that you are always with me, and thank you for your Truth that lights my way. In Jesus’ name, Amen!