When fear chokes

Yesterday morning my husband stood in front of a room full of strangers. He answered their questions, spoke from the Word, and tried to give a painfully honest presentation of himself. When he was done our family waited next door while that room of people voted. They voted to make him their pastor.

This is not new territory for us. We’ve done this before.

Photo Credit: Doug Kerr

A year ago the process became so painful that we stepped away. We met with a small group of friends. We prayed and sang and read and loved and watched. Not long ago we knew — it was time to go back.

In two weeks we will pack up our three kids, two dogs, and my mother-in-law and move from the largest city in our state to a very small one. It will be a time of new schools, new friends, new customs, and a new time zone. I will have a longer commute and we will again live in a parsonage.

For the past few days I’ve felt a tightening in my throat. I’ve wondered if I caught something from the kids, or if I need an antibiotic, or if I’ve developed a new food allergy. I consulted my chief medical advisor. Google returned page after page with the same verdict, anxiety is the most likely cause. It took two pages of links before it sank in.

I’ve tried to write about our new life several times this weekend and just couldn’t. Fear stopped me. Because now, that room full of strangers may be reading.

The line between appropriate discretion and fear is barely discernible. My words have gotten me into trouble before.

I’ve had to learn what it is to silence myself during an important discussion for fear that my husband might have to choose between defending me and doing what he thinks is best. I know what it is to discover a year later that a moment of frustration at the wrong time in the wrong place made someone decide to never come back. I know what it is for people to expect me to dictate my children’s friends because of their dad’s job. I’ve had to learn to say, “I will make them be kind, but I will not choose their friends.”

I heard a pastor speak at a conference once. “Don’t slaughter the sacred cow,” he said. But sacred cows can hide like snakes in grass and you don’t see them until your foot is squarely on them. Some of the things I say here are Rock of Gibraltar conviction but the rest is malleable clay opinion that changes with time and age and further study.

My throat tightens and I wonder what woman is really qualified to be a pastor’s wife who allows worry to become constant choking as she considers all that must happen in the next three weeks.

But before the anxiety has its way, I remember what he’s already done.

I’ve seen God grip hopeless addicts and change their lives forever. I’ve seen marriages restored; ravaged communities rebuilt; abused children placed in loving homes. I’ve known God and I’ve seen his people do amazing things.

And even in the midst of change and fear, I am more confident in his Word than at any other time in my life. As I recount all that He has done, the tightening loosens and I remember, “tomorrow will worry about itself.”

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
(Matthew 6:33-34 NIV)