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I have been meaning to share this, so why not now...
Fear has been on my mind lately. Not like scary creature in the closet (although that does cross my mind from time to time, I hate to admit), but more like the crippling life stuff that can stop a person if they let it. There have been a few instances in my life that I was crippled by fear and I wanted to share those situations with you. I am one of those people that feels closest when I share, or make myself vulnerable. Why, I don't know, but read on if this might interest you.
The military kind of takes your fears and kicks it right in the balls (sorry, best way to describe it). I was always afraid of falling and that was exploited early on in my military career. Coincidentally, most of my life's fears were derived from experiences I had during my military career.
To start my fear list we begin here:
1) BMT, or Basic Military Training. Now if you are a man (or woman) that went through basic in the 80's like my husband, sorry Billy, I married an older, wiser, sexy man, I did. They had it worse...they got cussed at and maybe laid a hand on. But for me, a silly ole, party girl yankee from Illinois, this was all new and terribly alarming for me. I saw the big picture...the travel, the military issue purse, and thought "hey this is sort of like the peace corps, except I get to qualify with weapons, travel and get paid kinda well." To be perfectly honest the peace corps would not take me, because I did not have a Bachelor's Degree. So in BMT we face obstacle courses with heights, my favorite, and shots (loads of shots- immunizations), pretty frequent verbal abuse, and marching...lots of marching. I had a crazy fear of being recycled. What is that you ask...well if you screw up or can't pass well...anything they send you back a week, or two or three. I was so petrified of being recycled that it crossed my mind- did 5ks there- almost constantly.
Then you skip a few years until I was accepted into the highly coveted (depends on the circle I guess) Combat Camera. They asked me if I wanted to fly...like arial photojournalism. "Of course yes, what do I do next, and do I get to wear a flight suit?" This leads to a large grouping of fears which includes being berated in public, confrontation, heights, falling, jumping into large masses of water that you can't see the bottom of, being a POW, sleeping outdoors with no tent, pooping outdoors while training with a 98% male audience(not the right word), and jumping off of stuff or being dropped from high distances, being shot at, having to shoot someone, RPGs, walking across slick logs that are high up, showing my photographs to some of the "greats" on a regular basis (this goes back to the being berated comment-so does Survival School), and the fear of spilling my guts if I were captured and tortured, puking while flying, and failing at something I am so passionate about. Those are in no particular order btw.
If anyone cares to read this I will continue and talk about the things I have listed below in another blog post...It is freeing to just release our fears. I recently heard Steven Furtick say "fear is the opposite of faith", and I couldn't agree more. I believe God hears every prayer, we may not see an answer when we are ready to, but he never wastes our faith...the last part also by Steven Furtick. I could tweet FOR him, everything he says is twitter-able, or remarkable, or kick-you-where-it-counts-amazingly poignant. If you get a minute listen to an archived message, you won't be sorry. They are all super.
More to come from me, I wanted to share a little, but I have some work I have to do still today ;) Thoughts??
My fears were/are driven from these situations:
- Survival School
- Water Survival School
- Iraq
- Having babies- pregnancy, and birth
- Bill's looooong deployment
- Moving to texas
Fear has been on my mind lately. Not like scary creature in the closet (although that does cross my mind from time to time, I hate to admit), but more like the crippling life stuff that can stop a person if they let it. There have been a few instances in my life that I was crippled by fear and I wanted to share those situations with you. I am one of those people that feels closest when I share, or make myself vulnerable. Why, I don't know, but read on if this might interest you.
The military kind of takes your fears and kicks it right in the balls (sorry, best way to describe it). I was always afraid of falling and that was exploited early on in my military career. Coincidentally, most of my life's fears were derived from experiences I had during my military career.
To start my fear list we begin here:
1) BMT, or Basic Military Training. Now if you are a man (or woman) that went through basic in the 80's like my husband, sorry Billy, I married an older, wiser, sexy man, I did. They had it worse...they got cussed at and maybe laid a hand on. But for me, a silly ole, party girl yankee from Illinois, this was all new and terribly alarming for me. I saw the big picture...the travel, the military issue purse, and thought "hey this is sort of like the peace corps, except I get to qualify with weapons, travel and get paid kinda well." To be perfectly honest the peace corps would not take me, because I did not have a Bachelor's Degree. So in BMT we face obstacle courses with heights, my favorite, and shots (loads of shots- immunizations), pretty frequent verbal abuse, and marching...lots of marching. I had a crazy fear of being recycled. What is that you ask...well if you screw up or can't pass well...anything they send you back a week, or two or three. I was so petrified of being recycled that it crossed my mind- did 5ks there- almost constantly.
Then you skip a few years until I was accepted into the highly coveted (depends on the circle I guess) Combat Camera. They asked me if I wanted to fly...like arial photojournalism. "Of course yes, what do I do next, and do I get to wear a flight suit?" This leads to a large grouping of fears which includes being berated in public, confrontation, heights, falling, jumping into large masses of water that you can't see the bottom of, being a POW, sleeping outdoors with no tent, pooping outdoors while training with a 98% male audience(not the right word), and jumping off of stuff or being dropped from high distances, being shot at, having to shoot someone, RPGs, walking across slick logs that are high up, showing my photographs to some of the "greats" on a regular basis (this goes back to the being berated comment-so does Survival School), and the fear of spilling my guts if I were captured and tortured, puking while flying, and failing at something I am so passionate about. Those are in no particular order btw.
If anyone cares to read this I will continue and talk about the things I have listed below in another blog post...It is freeing to just release our fears. I recently heard Steven Furtick say "fear is the opposite of faith", and I couldn't agree more. I believe God hears every prayer, we may not see an answer when we are ready to, but he never wastes our faith...the last part also by Steven Furtick. I could tweet FOR him, everything he says is twitter-able, or remarkable, or kick-you-where-it-counts-amazingly poignant. If you get a minute listen to an archived message, you won't be sorry. They are all super.
More to come from me, I wanted to share a little, but I have some work I have to do still today ;) Thoughts??
My fears were/are driven from these situations:
- Survival School
- Water Survival School
- Iraq
- Having babies- pregnancy, and birth
- Bill's looooong deployment
- Moving to texas
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Comments
Ashley, thanks for sharing. :) "Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase." I agree that fear is the opposite of faith, but also that fear reminds us of those things we appreciate, value, love, and live for... and for that constant appreciation, I'm appreciative of fear... and as for faith? I couldn't get through a day without it. :) Hang in there... and take that first step... with faith that the staircase will you want and need to be. :)
(02.06.11 @ 05:47 AM)