Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash

As many of you know, our youngest daughter recently passed away not quite two months ago. Her brief life and death marred us, messed with us, is still not a puzzle solved or mountain climbed. Considering this monstrous life event and alllll that is happening globally with coronavirus, I’ve been thinking about many of the things that happen behind the scenes of grief and as a result of awful life events. One such thing is fear.

How is fear first conceived? What makes it grow? How does fear develop into a fully formed, living thing with fists that can grip us, rip us to and fro, nearly control us?

I’m not talking about the fight/flight response we need when there is imminent danger like a fire or car coming toward us. I’m talking about the fear that lingers there long after any imminent danger is present. The anxious, constantly-present fear. The dormant yet- strong-as-ever fear.

I think these types of fears are founded on something true or partially true. Some piece of scientific or historical (even personally historical) information. A few facts or events that we can point to. Then, to become a fear and not just a factoid or two, our emotion comes into play. Our own sadness, anger, regret, confusion, shame. The fear grows.

But as I thought about this, I realized that beneath it, or maybe if we follow it to its end, most fears are not really that different. We may fear the rising sea levels, the pollution, the natural disasters, but the base layer of this fear is existential: the ending of life as we know it. We may fear different people groups with very different, sometimes backwards ideals coming into our cities, but the base of this fear is once again, the ending of life as we know it. We may fear our loved ones or ourselves getting hurt, sick, even dying and, once again, following that fear to its end is also the end of life as we know it. We may fear what we are taught to fear by our parents, politicians, teachers, media-outlet-of-choice, but I challenge you to follow that fear and it will most-likely end in the place the rest of these fears do.

I don’t know if thinking this way brings you any sort of comfort, but for me it’s kind of refreshing. Maybe we are not really that different after all. We all are united by our deepest fear. Perhaps that’s a bit unpleasant for you. Fear is not something we want to own. We’d rather own logic, wisdom, morality, knowledge. We’d rather think an emotion like fear has nothing to do with us. Maybe you think you just care. You don’t fear. But if this ‘care’ leads you on to the same destination, this end to life as you know it,  it may still hold a pinch or even gallon of unseen fear.

One of my greatest, most unlikely fears came true. One of those dormant-swirling fears. The kind you have automatically and must always always fight. Death. My daughter died. My physical flesh and blood, my ethereal hope and love was in this person, and she died.

The worst happened. Fear became reality.

But I don’t want to live in fear that the worst will happen again and again just because it did. Because we can probably all agree, that fearing all the time is a horrible way to live.

My fear came true. There is an end to life as I knew it. But there is something else there too: hope.

Hope that THIS isn’t it for us. This death, this imperfection, this virus, this iffy science we worship, this messy morality we cling to, this failing humanity and flailing earth. There IS something greater, more perfect, more lovely, more kind, more lasting than THIS. Or why and how can we know it deeply–feel it in the unseen places of our soul? We are built for it, and I have hope it’s still coming.

Hope. Hope can unite us too.

Lord I pray that during this tumultuous time, we are united by the hope. That fearing sickness and death is not our calling and brings no change to our lives. Take our fears that we grip on to and those that grip onto us. Replace them with hope. 

 

Romans 8:24
For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see?

2 Corinthians 4:18
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 5:7
For we walk by faith, not by sight.