Fear and Anxiety

For a long time I lived in fear of disappointing or hurting my father. I silently complied with everything that was asked of me. On the rare occasion I would take a small step outside of what was expected of me I was immediately corrected and I fell back in line. My father was not an angry man. He never yelled yet knew when it was appropriate to raise his voice. My father was not physically abusive yet spanked us at appropriate times without going overboard. He had a firm grasp on his family and we all knew who was in charge. I saw my siblings try to grow a mind of their own only to get shutdown and feel the hurt associated with that. I learned that it was better to just accept life the way my father designed it. After all, this was supposedly the perfect example of the life God intended for us.

I grew up in a Christian family, attended church several times a week, and attended a Christian school. At five years old I prayed a prayer so that I could tell people I was a Christian. I never gave it a second thought until I reached sixth grade when we moved and I suddenly found myself attending public school on the other side of town. It took less than two weeks for me to realize I wasn't truly a Christian and I quickly embraced being a vulgar, crass, perverted, swearing 11 year-old. But I only acted this way at school. At home I continued to live my perfect-appearing life. I even spent a summer stealing chrome caps off of car wheels and shoplifted a few items at our local Ben Franklin five and dime store.

So I spent 16 years purposefully living a fake life. There were times I wanted to stop the facade and come clean but feared losing what I felt was a happy life full of friends and family. But most of all I feared my father would love me less and would devote himself to "getting me saved". I didn't want anyone to force their views on me. I wanted to figure it out myself. I had questions about God but I couldn't ask them because it would shatter the facade I had created. It was a vicious circle. I wasn't confident God or hell existed, but I sure as hell didn't want to be wrong about that. So I spent those 16 years scared of dying.

When my life came crumbling down around me in the midst of divorce my Christian facade was suddenly no longer needed. Having reached the utter depths of depression I was finally able to confront my mortality by talking to other people. At the time, the hardest thing I had ever done in my life was to confess to my father that I had been living a lie. I feared losing his love. I feared breaking his heart. I feared being bombarded by Bible-thumping for the rest of my life. I feared losing my job. I feared losing my friends. Everything was connected.

But I did it. And I lived to tell about it. And my fears were not realized. I found loving friends. I found compassionate strangers. I found a father who I felt loved me but just didn't know how to express it. And I found God. He is real. He is present. He loves me. I love him. He is my best friend. He pours His grace out on me. He is the foundation I build my life around. Where he leads I follow. Someday I will see Him face to face.

Do I have any fear and anxiety about my father today? I don't think I do. I'm very comfortable talking about my different points of view. I don't believe I can change him and I don't care to. I want him to know who his son is and accept me for who I am. If he can't do that I am totally okay with it. I now go to a different church, support Ron Paul for president, and am comfortable seeking employment elsewhere in the future. Most importantly though, I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, my Father in Heaven. That's something that nobody can take away from me.