Translation - Management of Fear (Part 1) - A Husband's Voice

What is the mot beautiful thing Fernan is doing during this time? - To lay his hand on my forehead and pray for me every single night.
What is my prayer? - May the Lord bless him and honor him because he has honored the Lord by modeling a servant leadership.
 

My husband Fernando doesn’t love to write about these things, but he also has something to say. So, we recorded a conversation and I made a transcript.  I hope you can “read” even his sighs. This was his answer to the question about his feelings when he got the cancer news.

"This process has different meanings for each one of us. This hit me where it hurts the most. It would be so much easier if I’m the one sick, if I’m the one having surgery. In that case I would be less afraid. But when someone you love, such as a wife or a son, is having a rough time…

When it comes to these types of diseases, such as Becky’s cancer or our son’s medical condition… you really don’t know what to expect ... many times the fear of losing them is very real. We already went through this with Frandiego (Note: Our 4 years old son was in the intensive care unit in September 2014 after a cardiac arrest). Moreover, these are complicated treatments, surgical interventions ... and you don’t know how much it will hurt them ... I would like to trade places with them.

I wouldn’t say that is pain what you feel; it is more like a weird feeling in the center of the chest. Sometimes you don’t want to inhale because you are afraid that if you do that, everything will explode. It's a lot of pressure.

But I realized that it's too burdensome giving God instructions on how to take care of my family. I got to say: " God I surrender my family to you, but please, make sure they are not hurt that way, that's how I treat them, take care of them specifically this way." Until I understood that I don’t have to protect my family from God because He loves them much more than I do. And here I was, talking with God about how he should deal with my family when His plans are much bigger. He's talking about miracles...”

How often do we do this? We want to "protect our things” from God. Our dreams, our family, our ministry, our work, our agenda, etc… We think that by surrender all to God we will experience all kinds of calamities and misfortunes. We fear that God is not interested in our welfare. Then, driven by fear we engage in all kinds of alternate plans that eventually leave us exhausted and paralyzed.

First, we must understand that nothing is really ours. Everything is God’s.

"Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all." (1 Chronicles 29:11, NIV)

"The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it" (Psalm 24: 1, NIV)

It is God’s family, God’s house, God’s body, God’s ministry, God’s time…everything is God’s.

Second, 1 John 4:18 states:

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love"

Verse 10 of this same chapter provides the definition of the perfect love:

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." (NIV)

What a great mystery! God giving His son to die for us while we were yet sinners and enemies. God taking the first step because He wanted us to relate to Him. God loving us first. So, why do we need to "protect" what we love from the One who loves us the most? God’s love has already secured our supreme good, the forgiveness of our sins and an eternal life through Jesus. If we ever doubt what motivates God in His dealings with us, we just need look at the Cross, we just need to look at Jesus. He is the perfect representation of love.

Maybe we don’t understand what God is doing. Maybe we won’t get the answers to all our questions. Maybe we can’t see the whole picture from the human perspective. But we must never doubt, neither in the darkest valleys nor in the longer nights that God loves us.

The fear says: “Protect what’s yours, find a way to solve this by your own, escape, be safe, hide yourself”. But God’s love says: “Rest in me, everything is mine…there is security, there is redemption, there is salvation, there is life, there is purpose, there are promises, there is hope, there is eternity.”

 Fernan & Becky

 

All rights reserved. Rebecca Parrilla. April/2015