Original article HERE
NOTE: THIS ARTICLE is a reprint from the blog of reverend Kevin Rogers of New Song Church in Windsor, Ontario and is reproduced here for your convenience. You can visit the his blog called "The Orphan Age" HERE.
When I was a boy, I was afraid of the dark. I would lay in
bed fearing that monsters were in the closet and worse still; that earwigs might
climb upon my pillow and enter my ears.
Eventually being outdoors in the dark with friends playing
hide-and-seek helped me to overcome the fear. I became comfortable in darkness
and stopped worrying about the bugs as well.
Like many kids of my era, I would do daring things to
challenge the fear factor. Looking back, one of the things that pushed the
limit was the time I stood next to the tracks while a passenger train whooshed
by at high speed. My seventeen-year-old brain decided that it would be okay to
stand one metre away. And yes, I felt the rumble, heard the noise, and got
splashed with some gravel dust, but lived to tell of my bravery. Or perhaps it
was stupidity. In the face of fears, I began at an early age to face my fears
head on.
Some fears are good for you and preserve your life. Other
fears debilitate and stop you from functioning in a healthy way.
Some fears are rational, and I probably should have thought
twice about standing close to a speeding train. Rational fears and irrational fears…
sometimes we are afraid and there’s no reason to feel that way.