Frozen by fear

I’m going to share a little secret.
It is a bit embarrassing.

I am afraid of ants.

{There. I said it.}

I am afraid of those little tiny sugar, grease, whatever-you-want to call them, ants.

Totally irrational. Silly fear.

Maybe it will help you understand if you knew that when I was five years old, I watched a scary movie about ‘killer ants’.

I woke up this morning faced with the Monday-blues. I didn’t want to get up and face my day… finally I realized the real reason.

Choas.

Our home feels like chaos… and it all comes back to ants.
Or, more specifically… fear.

A few weeks ago we discovered a leak under the house. Prior to that we started having these horribly large spiders (my husband calls them ‘spiders of unusual size’). About the same time we discovered the leak, we found ants in the kitchen pantry. Our theory is that the water from under the house is displacing all these lovely creatures.

Regardless, the real issue is that they are IN THE HOUSE.

So – I did what every rational person would do and posted all about it on facebook.
Then, I took everything out of the pantry and put it on the dining room table.

Truth be told.
Most of the food is still on the dining room table.

The thing is… other things have now been put on the table and there isn’t room to do anything there – let alone enjoy a family meal. Everything is harder in our home because of the table. It is the first thing I see when I walk in the front door and it makes me not want to be home at all.
Can you relate?

It is the HUB of our home and it has become like chaos and mess.
This all goes back to the ants and my fear that, even though we haven’t seen any for over 48 hours, they will return once everything is back in the pantry.

It may sound a little bit overboard. {I warned you, irrational fear!}

As I was in bed this morning thinking about facing my day,

I started thinking about how this fear has grown into the ugly.

Isn’t this how our enemy works?

It starts with a little {maybe silly} fear.
We fix our eyes on it a little too much and it freezes us.

Satan strategically entangles us with our fear and sin as it grows into the super ugly.

In Hebrews 12 it says:
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

I can choose to sit in my fear and ugly.
I can choose to be entangled by it – no matter how irrational.
I can choose to let it become big and seep into other areas of my life.

OR,

I can choose to lay my fear and chaos aside… and fix my eyes on Jesus as He trades my ugly for His beautiful.

And… the best part is that we don’t have to do this alone.

We {YOU and ME} have a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us.

People who have gone before us in this journey.

Witnesses who have shared their story of God taking the ugly and making it beautiful in their lives.
Stories of redemption.
Stories of miraculous works demonstrating God’s patient love for His people.

We do not have to choose to be stuck in the ugly.

I don’t know about you, but I choose to fix my eyes on Jesus.

On His beautiful.
On His story of grace and peace.
When I let my mind dwell on these things I see the truth.

He has been faithful before and will be faithful again to take our ugly and make it His beautiful.

~~
This post is part of the 31 Day Challenge: My Ugly, His Beautiful. You can follow along here.

Care to join in on the writing challenge? The Nester is putting it on – you can learn more here.