"For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." (2 Timothy 1:7)
It is interesting to note in the song titled “Heaven’s Secret” Produced by a group called TRBL Music the bridge of the song goes:
I can feel peace coming
I can see fear running
Your love it just does something
That sets my feet to dancing
Funny how I was tuning in to a sermon delivered by Dr. Anita Phillips titled “The Scene of the Fall” as a part of their damaged but not destroyed series. She is a Trauma Therapist which basically means she helps people to overcome the traumatic events that they have experienced without them retraumatizing. This is done through meticulous counselling strategies of course.
According to mind.org, trauma is when we experience very stressful, frightening, or distressing events that are difficult to cope with or out of our control. It could be one incident, or an ongoing event that happens over a long period of time.
The writer says that most of us will experience an event in our lives that could be considered traumatic. But we won't all be affected the same way. Trauma can happen at any age. And it can affect us at any time, including a long time after the event has happened.
What Dr. Anita allowed my mind to be open to is the fact that for ‘fear’ to be eliminated, you must receive love. For all the things that have traumatized you to no longer affect you, you must accept love. It can’t be that we constantly give love but have not opened a door to accept it. It can’t be that we are so focused on the negatives that we can’t even see how some of the people around us love us despite who we are. There is an unconditional love floating round about us, but we have allowed hate and disappointment to choke it out or better yet impair our vision. Yes, we want certain people to show us love and to understand us and to even appreciate the love we give but we must remember that’s an expectation of agape love that many people are yet to be exposed to. This is the unconditional love that God Himself shows to us and have made available as a part of the fruit of His Spirit.
What we learn about the reality of accepting love is it stimulates aspects of the body, neurons-nerve cells that send messages across the body that affects how we feel, think, among other things and this produces a feel-good hormone- dopamine. This, according to healthdirect.gov, acts on areas of the brain to give you feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, and motivation. Dopamine also has a role to play in controlling memory, mood, sleep, learning, concentration, movement, and other body functions.
This is why when you are stressed and depressed you are always feeling some sort of pain, or you feel drained. It’s your body saying hey, you are choking me for what happens is that it now sends out more things that cramps and paralyses you slowly.
How does this relate to the scripture of 2 Timothy 1:7? You fear being rejected; you fear being misunderstood; you fear being alone; not realizing this fear chokes your body making it hard for you to even breathe or function. This fear paralyzes you making it difficult for you to enter relationships/friendships/partnerships with others as it creates a trauma.
Look what the text said God gave instead of fear- POWER, LOVE, and SELF-CONTROL.
We have the power to change how our bodies, especially our minds, in how it react to what we feel without masking our truest feelings- being real with ourselves and others.
We have access to love that allows us to understand that- hey I will be misunderstood, I may be rejected but I am never alone. The God you believe in never lies and we must take control of our minds to see when He sends help through His love.
We have self-control as directed by God’s Spirit to choose to release dopamine to make our bodies feel better. We have the power to choose to entertain what will benefit us rather than focus on the negatives that drain us.
You notice the text didn’t say instead of fear God gave us faith? That means the opposite of fear is love for 1 John 4:18 says “perfect love casts out fear” and it is why the song writer of the song used in the introduction was able to highlight that fear started running and there was peace that overwhelm them the moment His love begins to do something.
Why do I say all of this?
You may be going through something that you feel like it is unfair or someone may have said something to you and have caused your heart to be hardened towards them and you don’t even realize that it is what has been making you sick or you don’t even realize that it affects the way you treat others or it affects the way you accept help from others. Let’s go deeper, it affects the way you trust others and even trust situations. They say we develop phobias because of fear of not knowing what the outcome would be when placed in a particular situation. So even if a harmless roach won’t do us any harm as we are bigger and all we can do is spray it or slap it, we run away at first sight because of fear. Fear allows us to amplify the size of the roach and what it may do to us negatively.
For me, when God wants to elevate me, I first must conquer a major fear. I am an introvert by psychology studies, and I do not like having to talk to people I just meet and to be in spaces with crowds. Since coming to Christ, God has forced me to be interacting with persons on this level till now it is natural to say hi. Another instance is I am a non-sharer. I would rather keep everything to myself as I always believe that people cannot be trusted, and I fear persons knowing about aspects of my life that they may judge me by. Then God allowed me to share with persons some aspects and to be honest, it felt like a load was lifted from me. He needed me to conquer this fear, He provided trustworthy persons that basically operated out of His love and then I understood that though He may not have planned for me to go through some experiences that I have had, He intern uses them for His good. Yes, the enemy may have meant for it to be evil-to destroy me, now I am standing and able to encourage others from a place of experience. Not only that, but I am better able to understand how to demonstrate His love as it all flows out of the love I have received.
Therefore, on the other side of fear lies love!
Need help navigating this, feel free to reach out. Don’t let fear allow you to think there is no one out there that is willing and able to love, care and be of help to you emotionally and psychologically. The entire unit is here for you!
Love always, ~Nessa
Remember to share with a friend.
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