Fear Has Many Faces

Last night as I snuggled down into bed, my eye caught something on the ceiling! An unwanted visitor…

This spider was UGHHHH. I went right below it to get a better look and take a photo, and I cringed and shivered at the sight of it. It looked scary and gave me the heebee jeebees!

Mike came with his glass and his card and bravely climbed up to remove Eensie Weensie off the ceiling…

Brave hero!

I hope the spider had strong legs because he took a leap off the balcony.

Fear has many faces. I did not want to sleep the night with that spider on the ceiling and even worse, wake up to find it ‘gone’. Gone where? I was afraid of the spider!

There is a lot to fear in this life. We are products of Africa where crime abounds and some of it is violent. We have been raised hearing stories of criminal activity. I remember when I was only about 7 or 8 and I heard of a lady being mugged on a cycle track close to my home. She had her handbag snatched. The year was about 1971.

When I moved to Cape Town in 1983, I was travelling to see a friend and went via Observatory train station. As I passed the top of the underground, a man grabbed the shopping back I was carrying and tried to run off with it. I hung onto it and growled loudly at him. He ran off laughing.

We have been burgled. Granny was mugged. My sister was held up at gun point in her home in Johannesburg. My brother was once hi-jacked (that was about 1998) at gun point outside his home. Our fear of crime is not unfounded. Yet we cannot allow it to rule our lives. We would go mad.

Crime is not restricted to Africa. It is worldwide – otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to so easily find this….Britain’s most wanted…

Or this….

And even though crime in those countries may not be as high as Africa, there are other terrors lurking through the Western World, as we bore testimony to this very morning…

What does the Bible say?

Ecclesiastes 1:9

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

The words of Jesus allude to crime of the day…and what He came for…

John 10:10

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

So as we walk through life, nervous of what may happen, of whether the spider will fall, or whether the car we are travelling in may crash, or we may get mugged, we need to constantly look to the Author of our life and know that while these terrible things do go on, and do touch our lives, we have the assurance that nothing is going to happen to us without God’s permission, His presence and His purpose being worked out in our lives.

We need to trust Him, wholly and completely 24/7.

If something dreadful does happen and death occurs – we trust God for eternal life and that this life is just the comma and not the full stop. The best is yet to come.

Keep the smile going.

God bless you.

In His Grip,

Helga xx