Do It Scared

I was chomping away on some popcorn the other day and bit down on a kernel so hard. I felt a sharp pain as if my teeth split open like a cracked rock. Upon panicked inspection I thankfully discovered they did not actually split open like I horrifically envisioned. The resounding ache, however, was very present. 

I made my husband glance at my teeth several times the next days with his cell phone light to continue to confirm they weren’t falling apart because I needed ALL EYES ON DECK. I maybe also roped one of my friends who is in the dentistry world to give me a phone consultation. And finally, I got brave enough to call my dentist. Now five weeks later, I have an appointment scheduled to have my teeth checked.

Am I the only one who seriously fears going to the dentist?? If it’s just a normal routine checkup I’m fine. But when it deals with having something fixed and potentially involving a drill, I’m down for the count. I can even be quoted having told my dentist that “I’d rather give birth to another baby than have my teeth drilled.”

I have a crazy amount of anxiety surrounding the dentist from an awful experience I had the year I graduated college. That particular visit seared itself into my brain and since then I have tried my best to avoid a dentist needing to work on my teeth. This is serious business in the Forney house. I floss and brush everyday to keep things healthy and to hopefully avoid having my teeth worked on.

But here we are, after my popcorn debacle, and now I’m most likely facing another drill.

And all of this got me thinking.

I’ve wondered sometimes if my fear of having fear is worse than the fear itself?

When I’m anxious about something, like my upcoming dentist visit, I think I tend to feel I shouldn’t be anxious because fear shows you aren’t trusting God – right? So if I’m exhibiting fear, then that indicates I’m not trusting. So I need to stop fearing and start trusting. Simple.

But it’s not simple. If you’ve encountered anxiety or fear over something, you know it’s not a simple mind-shift change. It’s not as easy as saying you want to stop fearing and start trusting God, and then it happens. I also believe fear and trust aren’t so black and white, so separated. I think they’re not necessarily one or the other but are much more woven together in a delicate dance that happens in our hearts and minds. Just because someone has fear doesn’t automatically indicate they aren’t trusting God. 

A couple years ago I ran across this verse from David in Psalm 56:3-4:

When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?

David did not say IF I am afraid, he said WHEN I am afraid.

David clearly exhibited fear, lived through fear, encountered fear. It almost seems like this was his learned plan for when fear would strike him.

WHEN he was afraid, he would PUT his trust in God.

I think sometimes I get caught up in believing the fact that I have fear in the first place must show I don’t trust God. That if I truly trusted God, I wouldn’t feel fear or anxiety. 

But where did I learn this and why has this become a ‘truth’ to me?

After sitting with these verses from David, I feel like they spoke to this very question. David was a man after God’s own heart. He had an ongoing relationship of trust with God and yet HE had fears. 

It’s inevitable that I will have fears. It’s not an IF but a WHEN. 

WHEN I have fear and anxiety, THEN what do I do with them?

We’ve had this motto in our house for a few years that resonates for us from this verse:

Do it scared.

I feel that ‘do it scared’ embraces the fact that you WILL have fear. You will have anxiety. And it’s ok that you feel these things. We don’t need to be fearless first before we can move into something. We also don’t need to fear having fear about something. We don’t need to believe having fear indicates we are not trusting God with our lives.

The beauty about being in relationship with Jesus and having fear is that we do not have to sit in it or be tangled by it forever because we have the power within to give it to God – to put our trust in him. 

When David says, “I put my trust in you”, it feels so proactive, so intentional. He is acting upon his fear by actively PUTTING his trust in God. I don’t believe his trust was a natural knee-jerk reaction to his fear. I think he had to consciously choose to put his trust in God.

I’ve been trying to implement David’s gameplan around fear. Choosing to acknowledge that I am afraid and being ok with it. Then choosing to PUT my trust somewhere – into the loving and worthy hands of God.

For me this looks a whole lot like remembering. 

Every time I’m worked up or anxious over an upcoming thing (like right now, my dentist appointment) I try to mentally remind myself it’s ok that I am afraid. I will go through this appointment, and even if I am scared the whole time, that’s ok. I will do it anyway. I do not have to be perfectly unafraid to do something. 

I feel like trusting God can sometimes look like moving into the hard thing WHILE being afraid.

I remind myself that God is with me through the scary thing. He is always with me, no matter what things I face, no matter what outcomes happen. I am never alone in the things I fear. 

I remind myself that God cares about the things I am fearful of, whether my fear makes sense or is completely irrational, he cares for me and my heart in this process. He will use these trials as tools to refine me and redeem me – to make me more like him. 

I can cast all my anxieties on him, because he cares for me. (1 Peter 5:7)

These are all things I’ve been thinking through and wrestling over the past years. Doing things scared. Acknowledging my fears and then choosing to put my trust in God. Actively remembering God’s faithfulness and care for me. 

Although I am grateful I have the accessibility and ability to visit the dentist, it is something that gets me frazzled and anxious when I think about it. Maybe one day this won’t be the case? But for now it is my reality that I’m walking through.

What has helped you in your process of managing your fears and anxiety? Is there something that you also have been learning to give to God?