{fear is an opportunity}

here's the thing about fears... they can be really scary.  they can cloud your thinking, discourage the heck out of you, and they can paralyze you if you let them.

  

this past monday i read a post by lara casey, publisher and editor-in-chief of southern weddings magazine ...and all around super woman :) ...entitled "to name your fears is to destroy them."  after reading her post i couldn't help but read it again, and maybe a third time for good measure.  something about it started something within me that i couldn't pin point right away, but it most definitely got me thinking.  

after processing her post, i came to the realization that my fears of where photography could take me, what it would take out of me, and who it would make me have paralyzed me.  the fear had started to creep in... and sneaky as fear is, it wasn't so outright that i barely even noticed it, but in my mind and in my heart once i was aware of it, i could totally feel it was there.

so i sat down earlier this week and went through lara's post one more time and began staring my fears in the face.  the first few times of asking myself "what are you truly afraid of?" i really didn't have any answers, but honestly the more i thought through it and the more i asked myself, the fears started bubbling to the surface and once i started writing them down, they just kept coming.  once my fears were out and i had no more room to write i stopped, took a really deep breath, and started reading what i had just written... and i'm not going to lie it was slightly overwhelming.  it was deep stuff.  fears i really had never put into words before.  not only fears about photography, but fears about my life and my future.

when i started reading line by line my fears, i kept hearing a small voice in the back of my head... "i believe in a really big, crazy loving God and i can tackle these.  God is in control." 

lara stated in her blog "fear is the biggest thing holding you back from living your best life - the life you know you should be living right now in this moment" and i agree 134%.  i have decided that i'm going to tackle these fears and keep pushing through them.  i'm going to act, i'm going to take steps forward and stare these fears right in the face. 

"for God did not give us a spirit of timidity,

but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline"

-2 timothy 1:7

i know i've used this verse in a few of my other posts before, but God is really using that to challenge me in my facing my fears.  moving forward i am striving to seek clarity in where my fears are taking me.  i'm seeing my fears as an opportunity and want to be very intentional about seeking that out in my fears and what lies ahead of me.  i won't even start to say that it's not a scary process, but it's what i know i can do and what i must do to live the best life that God has given to me.  God's given me His spirit to walk me through this and with Him, i know clarity will come and i will destroy my fears.

what fears do you have today that are holding you back from living your best life?

 i encourage you to go read lara's post and tackle your fears head on!

{happy.thursday}