Fear is the danger--for example, when I was a little girl, my leg was healed of a nasty, painful boil. I had worn a wool stocking to hide the boil from my mother who was busy with our large family. When the removal of the stocking revealed a huge scar, she was surprised by what she saw, and scolded me because of the danger I supposedly had been in. The motherly concern took on in my own thoughts imaginative shapes, and I became fearful.
Even though the boil was visibly gone, the pain returned. But then I asked myself, "Why are you afraid? You are alright. Your leg is fine."
As I accepted this simple truth, the fear immediately vanished, and I felt at ease again.
In the Bible, the wisdom book of Job, sheds some light on the state of fear. Job said, "...the thing I greatly feared is come unto me." (3:25). Isn't he saying that the fear of a dreaded thing makes us suffer what we fear?
Spotting fear as a false thought with unreasonable emotions should alert us to fear's deceptiveness.
But it can be difficult to do.
Eva-Maria Hogrefe
2018
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