Irrational Fears: Being afraid for my life...
Brain dump
I've been scared of car accidents since I was four years old. My mom and I were in an accident that threw me out of the car (before seat belts) and totaled our Volkswagen Beetle. A man had run a red light and hit us, but we were alive and able to walk away from the scene.
Today this memory is imprinted on my heart from scenes I cannot forget and I have a scar on my right leg - a forever reminder.
When I was little, I thought it was a thing that whenever an adult got their drivers license, they would get in a car accident. I believed that for years.
Then there was a book I won't call by name that gives one the impression that what you think about too hard you call upon your life - good or bad.
So I try not to think about car accidents but I do. It doesn't hinder my performance, or keep me from wanting to drive here or there but I don't like to be first at a red light.
I've seen the aftermath of a motorcycle accident where you could see EMS trying to resuscitate someone. I have never forgotten it.
Last weekend I saw the aftermath of a car that went over a bridge. Christopher lost count at 12 emergency vehicles.
Yesterday, I saw the aftermath of an unrecognizable car that was still smoking as I passed by. No EMS on the scene yet.
I moved with the flow of traffic to get home. I was less than five minutes away, I needed to throw up. I did.
Today I learned that a car with three people sped through a red light and hit an SUV. The SUV driver had one passenger - an infant - the only survivor. Four people died at an intersection I go through everyday. Why did they die? Why was there even an accident? Why? Because someone could not wait for the light to cycle around to green.
Times up.
Reflect.
I worry about a lot of things. I don't know where these irrational fears come from but they make me ill for a moment.
I worry that I am standing in the bank on the day someone is going to rob it. I worry that someone is going to be driving through the neighborhood too fast when Christopher is out on his scooter. I worry about Christopher driving in approximately seven years. I worry about my husband anytime the three of us aren't together. When I haven't heard from my parents, I worry. I'll jokingly say once I've heard from them, "I was about to call the carbon monoxide police."
Irrational right?
Yesterday I worried for an instant, "What if that was my family?" And I made myself sick.
On the way to church this morning I googled, "What does the bible say about fear?" and I found:
Matthew 6:25-28
New International Version (NIV)
Do Not Worry
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?
Wow right?
Here's the thing...
I haven't calmed my fears today by this single passage but I can begin calming my fears today by reciting this single passage whenever I start to worry - about anything.
God's got it.
I felt the need to share this today.