I'm so Afraid: Being Terrified and Doing it Anyway

“Tell me a time you were terrified to do something, but you did it anyway.” The real answer to that is there's at least one thing every day. For instance, today's fears were walking on steps for a group photo shoot and making sure I didn't miss the photo shoot on my day off because I don't want to be invisible or have anyone think that I was unwilling to show up. I work really hard and being present for that was an acknowledgement of my efforts. On a historical scale, hospitals top that list. 

I'm very uncomfortable and also very familiar in a hospital setting. When I was about eighteen, a peer and I went to the local Children's Hospital, a place I spent a lot of my childhood. A place that gives me trauma flashbacks to this day. Hanging out with this girl was confronting in a lot of ways. She was still involved with the Children's Hospital because she'd been through a major life event that they helped her recover from. I was terrified to walk the halls of that hospital again and remember vividly battling my internalized ableism. The girl I was hanging out with was disabled from her life event and I was born with Cerebral Palsy. I was a long way from feeling the belonging I do today. I didn't want to visit the Children's Hospital, too many memories, and I was trying to distance myself from my disability, and my history. 

About eight years later, I organized a trip to that same Children's Hospital with the youth group I was leading in my first ministry job. We went there to provide an activity for the kids and like eight years earlier, I was crawling out of my skin. You see, I was afraid of those kids because I was one of those kids. The difference between this trip and the previous one is that it was my job to lead and be the adult in the room. And somewhere inside, I knew we could give those kids a break from their pain and terror of being at the hospital for treatment they may barely understand because of their age. I lived that a lot. I wanted to show up for those kids, even if the fear was debilitating. 

I do the thing that terrifies me because I don't want ableism to win. When I was younger, I did it because you told me I wasn't able to and whether verbally or not I was like, F’ that noise. Rock climbing, I was scared, but I did it anyway (probably less nervous than I was on the steps today). Leaving my Evangelical Christian University for a Lutheran one was so outside of my wheelhouse, but I did it anyway. My stories may read like I hated being an Evangelical because I did eventually, but it was also the only faith I'd ever known. I traveled across the country, on three weeks' notice, to a place I didn't know at all, to study with people I didn't know at all. I love some Evangelicals. I love some Lutherans. I love some atheists. It's terrifying to leave the things you know the best even if it's what you need to do for yourself. 

I was terrified to give my first sermon in my twenties and I know you can hear that in the recording. Fast forward a few years later and I'd give a different sermon on the Book of Jonah from memory because the satirical prophet was always close to my heart after translating it from Hebrew to English. I'm terrified on almost every stage. When a church music director asked me to play guitar at the family Christmas Eve service (the busiest service of the night and year) I was absolutely terrified. There's not much that gets me to retreat from the fears in life. In fact, the only thing I freeze in my fears with is relationships. 

Usually, I feel the fear and fight through it. For whatever reason that's a lot harder in relationships than it is when doing the things that terrify me, like balancing on steps, visiting hospitals, speaking to groups, or doing anything that puts me in the spotlight because I love it and I hate it. “So many ways to count the tears, I never change, I never will, I'm so afraid the way I feel” (Fleetwood Mac, “I'm so Afraid”). Fear is a powerful thing and it's interesting to see when it stops us and when it doesn't. Sometimes it even drives us.