Fear 07: The Application Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Emily Jensen: Hey, friends, Emily here. Real quick before we jump into the show, if you’ve been enjoying this mini-series and benefit from the ministry of Risen Motherhood, we would love to let you know that we have a book called Risen Motherhood: Gospel Hope for Everyday Moments. Laura and I co-wrote this book and it was released in 2019. It's really an overview of all of the things we talk about and it goes through the four parts of the gospel: creation, fall, redemption consummation.
In the book, we touch on 16 different topics that are really common to motherhood and talk about how you might apply the gospel to those things. Things like marriage, our heart attitudes, our food choices, our traditions, our school choices, the list goes on and on, but we hope at the end of the book, you would get a feel for how to do this in your own life. We really think this is accessible and possible for every mom as she’s in Christ and is seeking to follow him, and we think this is something you can do.
We hope that you’ll check it out, you can find it anywhere books are sold. Of course, there's all different versions, for example you can get a hard copy that we think is beautiful. We worked hard to make it a giftable, lovely book that you'd want to have around. There's also an e-version and there's an audiobook, so whatever format would work best for you. We also want to let you know we have a Spanish version. If Spanish is your first language, that may be a great option.
We hope that's helpful! Don't forget, too, we have a lot of resources to go along with our Fear mini-series at risenmotherhood.com/fear. There you can find free downloads like a devotional, a tool to use with your kids, a link to our Spotify playlist, along with all kinds of books, resources and articles that would be helpful to you. We're excited that you've joined us this far. Let's jump into the last episode of the Fear mini-series!
Laura Wifler: Hello, hello, and welcome back to Risen Motherhood. I'm Laura and I have my sister-in-law, Emily, here with me.
Emily: Hey!
Laura: Today, we are getting practical.
Emily: Yes! We hope you've joined us so far in our Fear series. Go back and listen to any episodes that you've missed, but today we are getting down into the things you can actually do to help trust the Lord in the midst of your fears.
Laura: Before we get into this list too deeply, I feel like we definitely need a disclaimer. We've talked about this a little bit before on the show in the past, but just keep in mind that it may be that your fears are becoming more than what is typical, and so you might need to involve a biblical counselor, a pastor. Always bringing in mentors or friends is always really wise, even maybe a doctor. Keep those things in mind. Then, as we talk about these things, please note that we are not encompassing the whole body of fear.
Emily: We're not necessarily getting into physical things, because we know fear can bring out very physical responses, whether it's the adrenaline rush, the heart beating, sweating, stomach issues, all kinds of things. We also know there are things we can do, like taking a brisk walk outside or exercising.
Laura: Go take a “feelings” bath!
Emily: [laughter] Yes. There are physical things we can do to help with our fears, but that's not what this list is focusing on today. We just want you to know, we know.
Laura: Those are really important facets of dealing with your fear, so they are not to be overlooked, but we’re going to be focusing more on the mental and emotional side of fear, wouldn’t you say, Emily?
Emily: And spiritually. Yes.
Laura: Spiritual, of course, so keep all that in mind as we go. Of course, we have to start with your time in the word and prayer.
Emily: 2 Timothy talks about the fact that all scripture is breathed out by God and it is profitable. It's so that we can be competent and equipped for every good work. I also love Psalm 34 where it talks about seeking the Lord and him delivering us from fear. I think when we think about fear, the number one answer given in scripture is to seek the Lord or pray. It's some form of that, in response. It's a main avenue we should take. One of the really specific things that we can do is write down verses. Have you ever done this, Laura, on a post-it note and then hang it around your house or put it in your car?
Laura: Yes. Absolutely.
Emily: I feel like that's a super-practical way we can remember God's word throughout our day.
Laura: Also, you guys probably heard our last episode, which was simply a bunch of Bible verses all about fear. You can play that if you are feeling afraid. I have appreciated things like that whenever I feel a very, very strong emotion to just let the Bible wash over me and speak truth into my life. As Emily said, it's profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, training, righteousness, all that kind of stuff. That all comes into play when you're just listening to it.
Emily: You can also do a specific Bible study on the topic that you're fearing, and really look throughout scripture. Potentially, it's a word study, or it's just a theme, and have different verses that you go through and look at how God meets people in the midst of that, or what God thinks about those different things. That can really provide some comfort and information.
Laura: Would you say things like miscarriage, death, sovereignty? Different words like that, which perhaps you're experiencing, you could do a word study or you could even do the word study on the word “fear.”
Emily: Absolutely.
Laura: Memorizing verses, that is always huge. I've really appreciated some of Hunter Beless's tips over at Journeywomen for how to memorize scripture and how to plant God's truth in your heart. I think it's so good to involve your kids in this. As moms, that makes it significantly easier whenever you've got your kiddos motivated to do so as well. For me, I was just reading this morning in Psalm 73, this is something that I was just reminded, “Oh, this is so helpful for times when I'm afraid.” I'm going to read a little bit to you here.
It says, "I am always with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me up in glory. Who do I have in heaven but you? I desire nothing on earth but you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever. But as for me, God's presence is my good. I've made the Lord God my refuge so I can tell about all you do."
Emily: So good.
Laura: Right, so when you're afraid if you recite that, how helpful would that be?
Emily: Absolutely. I think what's interesting here—as we're putting the word of God and prayer so much together because they rely on each other so much— is to have that back and forth listening to the Lord in his word and also crying out to him and telling him what we need. I know there's a verse in 1 Peter that we said in our last episode about anything that we're worried or anxious about, we need to bring all of those things to the Lord in prayer.
Even though he already knows what we need, he already knows what we're worried about, there are ways we can attach that prayer to certain circumstances in our day, like everyday activities. I know Debbie Martens, we have a show from her, she's a mentor of mine, and I love going over to her house because she has pictures in a little flip book above her sink.
She prays every time she does dishes for different families, and maybe the fears and concerns that are on the hearts of those moms and those families. You can also put popsicle sticks and keep them at the dinner table to pray for certain things. There's a lot of habits we can build into our day, or even just intentionally asking your friends at church, or maybe the whole church to pray about something that you're worried about.
Laura: I know so often I'll be sitting there and just spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning, working through my worries and then I'm like, "Wait, I haven't even prayed about this. I haven’t even brought this to God." I feel like I want to continue to train my mind for that to be the first answer when I get afraid, when I get worried, to just say, "Lord, help me," or, "Lord, be with me," or, "Lord, help me to not be afraid." Any of those things. He does bring comfort in the midst of that.
Emily: I'll share this story really quick. I was really convicted, a little over a year ago, in a way that is similar to what you were saying, Laura. Our son just turned five recently, and I was spinning a lot of these worries and concerns about his developmental delays. We weren't seeing a lot of progress with him in different areas, and just feeling like, "Lord, I haven't even really asked many other people in the body to come alongside us in this and share this burden with us."
I remember the day I stood up in our member's meeting, shared and asked people to pray faithfully. We even put it in our church prayer guide, and it’s been so encouraging, to me, to know that I have a whole body of believers behind us in this, beside us in this, and also covering him in prayer in this area. It's also been fun because as we've seen him make different gains, no matter how small, that there are now people rejoicing with us too in the progress that he's making.
I just want to encourage anybody who’s dealing with fears even around your kids and you're like, "Hey, I'm struggling in my parenting," or, "I'm afraid of this medical diagnosis," or, "I'm not seeing this or that thing happen in my marriage," that bringing other people in to pray with you, while it seems very, very scary in and of itself, it’s an incredible way to have support and have the comfort of others praying with you.
Laura: Well, there's just something about bringing our darkest secrets, the darkest fears that we have into the light, where there really is relief. Satan wants to tell you that there's going to be no good that's going to come of it and all they're going to do is judge you. I cannot recount one time when I have shared a deep, dark secret that I thought I had, and I was carrying alone, and that I carried for too long, I can't remember one time where I felt like, "Man, that was the worst idea ever."
Every time I've been really grateful, and part of it is choosing the right people to share that with. Like Emily sharing that with her local church and trusted body of believers, or I know I've shared with you, Emily, a lot of scary things, the fears. Often, I think when we share with other moms we realize, "Oh, I feel that way too," or, "I've had those thoughts."
I remember so many times when you and I have chatted, Em, and we've been like, "Have you ever been afraid of this?" It's like, "Oh my goodness, yes!!"
[laughter]
There's just comfort in knowing that you're not the only one, you're not alone, and while we all know that logically, it's nice when it's realized.
Emily: So good. I feel like we should have a sub-point, which is like, tell someone about your fears—
Laura: Tell someone!
Emily: —but maybe that's your one action item from today's show, that you're going to have a friend or multiple people pray with you about whatever your fear is.
Laura: Another idea, and we've talked way in-depth on this in the last episode, is to read missionary stories, stories of great faith in God's providence and provision. There's going to be a huge list in our show notes. We're probably not going to dive back into this, but a few episodes ago, the episode on the church—if you've not tuned in, we talk a little bit about this and we will certainly provide more links on lots of things that you can get more info on this. But I have been so encouraged and helped by seeing other Christians face their deepest fears, or reading about it, and seeing their steadfastness and faith and the way that God provided for them. It’s really neat.
Emily: Yes, so good. Another thing we can do is incorporate music, listen to really rich hymns. We know from Colossians 3:16, talking about how we should encourage each other by “singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Christians should be thinking about their theology and praising God through song, and that can really help us in our fears. I think it's amazing sometimes, the emotional change that can come as I'm listening to rich theology and finding comfort in him.
Laura: There's this great devotional that my family has been doing, it's called Family Time Hymns Devotional, and it's been so fun to teach these hymns to my kids. It has all of the verses of the hymns and it has the music so you can do it on your own, but it's been so great to even hear my children sing while they're playing Magna-Tiles, singing these verses and just the comfort it is to me.
Like Emily was saying, a lot of those hymns have such great theology embedded in them that when you stop to even think about the lyrics, which sometimes you can sing and not really think about what you're singing, but when you really listen to the lyrics, you're like, "Oh my goodness, this is such good truth. This is what I need to remember right now in the midst of this."
Emily: Along a similar vein, I think poetry or quotes that help embody a truth from scripture can be helpful to us. I love old-fashioned poems, those seem so much richer.
Laura: Yes, definitely. Why can we not write those any more today?
Emily: I don't know.
Laura: I legit feel like we can't do it anymore in 2020.
Emily: It's got to be around, we just haven't found it.
Laura: Somebody's got to be doing it, but tell us, write us, if you know of somebody who's writing the way like Annie Flint did, or Elisabeth Elliot, or Betty Scott Stam, all those women, you send us their poems. We want to hear them.
Emily: It's just another outward looking way that you can process your fears and think through them in light of scripture. Another thing that we can do is just be silent sometimes, which is an opportunity for meditation on scripture or preaching the gospel to our heart.
Laura: Yes, I think as a mom, there's noise all the time. For me, I know sometimes the best thing for me to do is to turn off the music, it's to turn off the audio Bible, it's to turn off any music that I'm listening to and instead say, "Kiddos, can you go downstairs for a little bit," and just having silence. I think that's been really helpful for me to get out of the chaos of the day.
Emily: I love Psalm 119. It’s is a great one to go through if you're ever wanting to think about the word of the Lord. It talks about, "I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways." I think what you're saying, Laura, is by eliminating the extra podcast, the extra noise or whatever, it can allow us to let our mind wander to the things of the Lord. Perhaps there's a scripture that we read earlier in the day and it comes back to mind and we're thinking about it from different angles or we're just processing our fear and then thinking about it in light of the gospel.
I feel like sometimes I can't think about something intentionally while there is a bunch of noise and distraction. It's when I go on the walk, or I drive to the errand, and I don't turn on something in the car and I'm not talking, that my brain can actually think, "Well, how would I apply the gospel to that," or whatever it is, and I can start to believe truth. I think sometimes we need that silence and that space for that to happen.
Laura: It's like someone asking you, "What's the tune to that song, while you're listening to another song?" You're like, "Legit, I'll never think of it until you turn that music off."
[laughter]
Another one and this is a—I want to say a favorite game at our house, which it means I have a lot of fears—but what my husband and I will do, and it was so helpful when he walked me through this one day, was that he would say, "Okay, well, what if your very worst fears happen? What would happen to us? Where would we go? What will we do?"
It's imagining the situation that you're afraid of, but also remembering that God's grace is a very real reality and you can use your sanctified imagination to really consider, "Okay if we go all the way down the end of the road, what’s going to happen?" I know I've shared this on a show before, but that has been a helpful thing for me. I think sometimes it can be unhelpful, I think for certain personalities perhaps this will send you into a tailspin—
Emily: You need to stop saying suppose.
Laura: Yes, let's play the game of suppose. Suppose this happens, suppose that happens, suppose this happens. I see this ‘what if’ as a very linear train of thought like, "What if they fall off the swing” Okay. They break their leg. Okay. What if they break their leg? Okay. We go to the hospital. Okay. What if they go to the hospital? Okay. We get medical care because we live in the United States. What if we get medical care? We have to pay the insurance.” You're just thinking through, in some ways a game plan and where it always ends up, usually, is that somebody dies and then we don't have anything.
[laughter]
Emily: We shouldn't be laughing, but it sounded funny when you said it.
Laura: Well, some levity in fear is helpful too. Laughter is good at times to pull you out of that and remember, “Okay, I'm talking crazy.” They're very real fears that we need to deal with, and we'll talk about that, but I think sometimes it's good to remember how unlikely some of these fears are, or to think, "Okay, we're going to get through it," and to remember, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Emily: The point of the Christian walk is that we go by faith and not by sight, so maybe we can't see what's going to happen, but we know we have a faithful God on the other side of it, and so what we can actually imagine as we're thinking about, "Well, what if this happened? What if that happened?” We can imagine God being faithful and meeting us there.
Of course, we don't know what he's going to do or what that would look like exactly, it's probably way different than what we would come up with, but we can know, "Okay, there is comfort because I know that He would give me grace there, if that happened.” That can be a helpful mental exercise.
Laura: Yes, if you really believe that the gates of hell will not prevail against heaven, and God's going to be faithful no matter what, then you can remind yourself that you have nothing to fear.
Emily: All right. Let's do some inputs and outputs.
Laura: I find this to be one of the most helpful things, honestly, and so often underutilized. I think for inputs, we all know what this means, but it is so much harder in practice. We know what's good for us, we know we should eat the fruit, but we are like, “I want the cookie.” Thinking about social media, like, "Hey, do you need to delete that for a while?"
I know, Emily, you've been taking some more breaks from it. I think we're seeing that more and more people are recognizing some of the adverse effects of social media and realizing sometimes there are people we either need to unfollow, or we need to maybe get off the app entirely, but just being aware of who you're following. I know, for me, sometimes I've thought, "Well, if I unfollow, then I won't know what's going on."
Emily: “I won't know how the world is crumbling.”
Laura: Yes, and that's been my fear and it's like, "No, no, I can find a different news source." Actually, there are non-partisan news sources out there, if you would like to get them.
Emily: That's another input that we need to talk about is what does your news intake look like? What are the sources? I think it's important, for any of us—this is just “News or Content Reading 101”—to know that if you're getting a ton of input from only one side or only one perspective, it's good from time-to-time to look at different news sources or go fact-check, and not just on websites that agree—
Laura: Read the actual statement from the governor or from whomever.
Emily: Right, go to the primary source.
Laura: Yes, all these all the time we're like, "Well, this person said this. Well, Twitter said that." It's like nope.
Emily: What did they actually say?
Laura: Twitter is a dumpster fire, please. Get off.
[laughter]
Emily: Maybe you need to decrease the amount of news that you're reading, maybe you need to only read it one time per day or one time per week, or have somebody that you really trust like your husband or best friend who can let you know if anything happened, but you need to take a break.
Laura: That’s kind of what I do. My husband knows I’m on a “need-to-know basis." He gives me the news that I need at some level. I have to protect myself especially coming off of the political season and all of the news that we've had here in the US. Another one is entertainment, I think this one can be kind of sneaky.
Emily: This is a sneaky one because we don't always think the movie we're watching that's about something fictional that never happened, can actually be playing into our real-life fears.
Laura: I remember the day that I had to just draw the line with my husband and I was like, "I shall not watch any of these shows." I watch PG only, basically, and I'm like, "Anything that has any criminal activity, I just cannot do." I wanted so badly to watch those movies with him and to be able to stomach some of those.
They're not even bad, they're just action-packed movies and I'm like, "You know what? This just is not good for my own personal mental health." I think it's been really helpful for me to draw that line, even though at some level it's been hard because he would like to watch those movies. I really think it's been super good for me, and to not—It's like they’re putting new images in your mind that you couldn't even conjure up on your own.
Emily: Yes, you're like, "Well now I have a whole bunch of new things to be scared of."
Laura: Yes. There's a whole bunch of ways my kids could be taken.
Emily: I know.
Laura: That's what happens.
Emily: Yes, and that's the same with reading books, and I just think it can be kind of sneaky.
Another one is relationships. These can be things in person, text message chains that you're on, friends and family talking on the Zoom call, or even an event, or in the church lobby. Are these conversations fostering an assurance of God's comfort and his sovereignty, or is this a big fear spiral that’s happening, and by the time you leave, your heart is palpitating? I can think of times when I leave a situation, and I was around people who were Christians, but then I feel terrified when I leave because for whatever reason, the conversation—
Laura: The conversation just went crazy.
Emily: —just went crazy. It's the tone of the conversation, and it's the topics, and it's the emphasis. There's nothing wrong with mentioning to your friends, "Hey, I'm afraid of this. Are you afraid of this?" We've affirmed that but it's when that becomes the whole focus and then there's building blocks of like, "Yes, but have you thought of this? What about this angle?" You and I did do this one time with prepping. Do you remember when we got—
Laura: Oh yes. Totally. Emily and I got a little bit into like, end of days prepping a tiny bit.
[laughter]
Emily: As in we bought a little bit of extra peanut butter and some water storage.
Laura: Emily’s got gasoline in her garage.
Emily: Yes, I did. I actually did prepping that we should’ve done already.
Laura: I have some extra water in my basement. This is embarrassing that we're telling everyone.
Emily: I have batteries now.
Laura: I thought we swore secrecy to this, Emily. I have a hand-crank radio, and that's all I'll say.
[laughter]
Back to—We'll get to that in a minute, but going on this Emily, I think this is really really important, not only for input but also for output. This idea that when we start to listen to a group of people or ourselves who are grumbling and complaining that usually comes from a source of fear. You can think about the Israelites, they were grumbling around all the time, they thought they were totally going to die from starvation so they complained and they grumbled.
I think a lot of times we can look underneath that grumbling and realize like, "Actually, there's something good and right in what we're grumbling about." Perhaps it's that we want to see public policies model biblical values, or maybe we want all people to be treated fairly and equally as image-bearers of God. Those are both super biblical values, and those longings that are kind of underneath the grumbling are right and good.
I think that that's been helpful for me to dig underneath and say, "Okay. Even when I'm engaging in conversations with other people to see like, what's their actual longing?" To realize that that's not really a bad thing, but the way it's playing out is actually really unhelpful, it's not going to get us anywhere, and they're really afraid that that's going to be taken away. They're afraid that people aren't going to be treated fairly, or they're afraid that our society is really moving away from biblical values. I think that it's important to look underneath and see what's sitting there.
Emily: That output is evaluating what we're sharing and what are we giving off? We don't want to be the person who’s constantly stirring up division and making other people feel afraid. I think this extends to what we're sharing on social media as well. I heard somebody give a really good warning about just the disproportionate nature of how we share posts. Let's say in our day and age with the pandemic, we're not seeing people in real life a lot, we're not having good quality conversations about other things, about the weather and about how their kids are doing and whatever.
If all they see is you're reposting a hundred billion things a day of things that are terrifying and scary, well, people's perception of you, whether you mean for it to be or not, is that you're stirring up fear in other's hearts, without maybe balancing that with truth or with other things that are going on or with the comfort of the Lord. I think it's just good to be self-aware. Again, this is us looking at ourselves only like, "How should a Christian be responding right now and how can I encourage others in the Lord versus kind of scaring them."
Laura: All right, our last one has been really helpful for me, we kind of touched on it a little bit earlier when we talked about prepping, but in all seriousness, taking practical steps can be actually really helpful because sometimes fear serves as a good warning. Call it like “Momma Intuition,” at times, there are things that we should be doing that’ll help us ease our fears if we just do a couple of practical steps.
Emily: I think one thing we can ask ourselves is, "Hey, is this statistically likely or unlikely to happen to me?" Statistics are not everything, obviously, the Lord is sovereign, he can do whatever he wants, but I think we can ask ourselves, "If this is something that's statistically unlikely, then why am I so concerned with this? Is there something deeper going on? Who or what am I hoping in or trusting in? Are my responses and actions proportionate to the threat?"
Then again it's pulling back, asking those deeper heart questions and taking that to the Lord. If it’s something that's likely to happen, a legitimate fear, is this something that God is giving me a warning about and I should take some healthy precautions for? Of course, we do those things in faith but once we've taken those precautions, is there something—why am I still not trusting the Lord?
Laura: It's practical things like locking your car, locking your house, teaching your kids not to play by the roads, training them in certain things. What to do around strangers, should you carry mace on a run if you live in a more dangerous area? Getting some books that will help you prompt discussions about protecting from pornography or having the sex talk early, having internet protections or boundaries on tech devices, even things like wearing your seatbelt. Those are just small, practical things, but even let's say, having a savings account if it's possible for you and your family to do that, to keep an extra container of fuel in the garage, Emily.
Emily: Yes, it's wise. It's wise.
[laughter]
Laura: It's wise. These things obviously don't substitute for the peace that guards our hearts through Christ, but they might be able to help you sleep at night.
Emily: One thing that we just want to close with is this reality that we're going to continue to face fears. This is not like, "Hey, just because I did a few practical things, I'm never going to struggle with anxiety or worry or fear ever again." We are supposed to bring those fears under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, we're supposed to bring them to God. It's a thing that we're told to do over and over and over again in Scripture, and he will help us. He will comfort us.
It doesn't mean that our feelings are automatically going to go away, but he can give us wisdom, and again we can walk in faith in the midst of not seeing the outcome, or not being sure what's going to happen, or not even being sure that we're going to have enough courage. I think something that I can even fear is, “When this scary thing happens, I'm not going to be able to respond and now I'm fearing how I'm going to respond to fear.” When we take those things to the Lord, we can trust, "I have the Holy Spirit, I have that security in me and I trust that God is going to be with me no matter what."
Laura: Yes. It often comes down to me of like, "What will I trust the most? What will be king of my heart?" I think there's a lot of truths in our lives that we're facing that can bring a lot of fear into our lives. The truth that a dad has cancer, or children have been exposed to pornography, or a husband lost his job, or your sister got COVID, but the question becomes, "What truth will triumph in your heart?” Is it the truth that God is sovereign and in control and has your best, or is it that all these things are going to just devastate you and destroy you?
We can ask ourselves, "Hey, do you really believe that all the days ordained for you are written in your book before one of them came to be, do you believe that God is always with you? Do you believe that the boundary lines have fallen for you in pleasant places and that you have a beautiful inheritance?" These are all things straight from Scripture that God tells us are true. As you face these fears and you do all these practical things, like Emily said, I think we have to go back and continue to ask, "Which truth will triumph in your heart?"
Emily: Oh, that's so good, and I feel like that wraps up so well this whole mini-series we've been doing on fear, and what we do with it and how do we respond to it, and how do we respond with courage is to think about which truth is going to triumph. We hope that you guys have joined us for this whole series, if you've missed any episode, definitely go back and listen.
We also hope that you've been checking out our show notes where we have lots of other links and more information. We hope you've been following us on social media, and if you haven't yet, definitely come check us out @RisenMotherhood on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, where we are continuing to share resources and quotes and Bible verses and all kinds of things that are encouraging us in this. Thank you, guys, and that's a wrap.