Some of us call them "phobias"... which is just a derivative of the Greek word for fear. I was googling phobias the other day. I was astounded at the wide variety of phobias. I have two in particular myself. The first one is called "globophobia" - fear of balloons. My friends LOVE to tease me about this one, but I blacked out at prom during the balloon drop. The fact is that my fear may be more along the lines of "ligyrophobia" or fear of loud noises. I'm not so much afraid of balloons as of the fact that when they are present people seem to love to pop them. Why? I don't know what's wrong with you people. Along with the ligyrophobia is also the fear of fireworks, gunshots, ziploc bags filled with air, those little air sacks that they use for shipping these days, and McDonald's birthday parties. Now, this seems a pretty avoidable fear, but you'd be amazed how much you'd start to notice all the places you are with your kids that people want to give them a balloon. I would seem awful if I just said, "No thanks. We're not balloon people," and walked away. I mean, who's not balloon people? What kind of hideous creature would withhold a fun, colorful piece of helium-inflated latex joy from their child? I don't even enter the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes for fear they might show up on my doorstep with balloons (never mind the enormous billion dollar check). I'd probably just black out or throw up on the person who took Ed McMahon's job, and they'd move on to the next house on the list.
My other phobia would be that of using an outhouse/pit toilet. I will not use one. Give me a patch of weeds and a somewhat questionable leaf over an outhouse any day. I wasn't able to find a phobia word for this one. Fear of toilets in general, however, is a phobia, and, believe me, I feel sorry for that guy.
I'll name some of my other "issues" - what I would classify more as worries than phobias. Most of these are ridiculous, but they've crossed my mind at least once - some of them daily. So I take these fears, and then answer them to their logical conclusions, as follows:
1) What if I had been born 100 years or more earlier than I was? What would I have done about the lack of indoor plumbing?
2) What if I had been born when there were no options for orthodontics or facial hair removal?
3) What if nobody takes pity on me when I get old and keeps up with my facial hair removal?
4) What if my words are forever etched on the internet? Will my grandchildren read them? My great grandchildren? I'm not sure I want that kind of pressure. I want them to remember me in some fanciful cloud of imagination... not as I really am.
5) What if I'm like some people and never get famous but then somehow do after I'm dead and the only pictures they find for my biography are bad hair days? Or what if they put a musical montage of my life in pictures together for my funeral and someone like Arthur Hannes narrates?
6) What if I'm not remembered at all?
7) What if salon shampoo is no better than store shampoo - only more expensive?
8) What if organic food is just a government conspiracy to get rid of the smaller, less appetizing produce at higher prices?
9) What if the UPS man knows me better than most other people do, and I don't know him at all?
10) What if archival quality photo paper really isn't? Will all my photos fade and be forgotten?
11) What if too much hair goes down my drain and clogs it?
12) What if Liquid Plumber is bad for the water table?
13) When the word "googling" (above) was not underlined by spell checker, I immediately thought, "That's an actual word now? This world is changing so rapidly. I'm old now. What if I can't keep up?"
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1) I would never have known the joys of indoor plumbing, and my parents might have always wondered with the grass behind the outhouse would never grow.
2) I would have been virtually unmarketable and would have had to join the circus sideshow.
3) I guess the kids will remember me as Grandpa Slagter or that scary old bearded lady who wanted a hug every Sunday during visiting hours.
4) Hopefully their reality check about me will be less disappointing than I anticipate. Chances are I'll be crazy old grandma anyway, and maybe viewing some former moments of semi-lucid writing will be a comfort to them. (Oh, and I'll be dead, and it won't matter.)
5) I'll be dead, and it won't matter.
6) I'll be dead, and it won't matter.
7) Then I'm wasting money on a label. People have done that for centuries for much more stupid things than shampoo.
8) Then I helped get rid of unwanted produce and feed farmers.
9) It's his job. He doesn't mind.
10) Maybe, but I'll probably be dead, and it won't matter.
11) Hello, Liquid Plumber.
12) Hello, actual plumber.
13) Then I'll fall behind and become an "eccentric"... which will make the frizzy hair and beard more socially acceptable.
My mom used to have a saying. I remember this saying, because I use it on my own children on a regular basis. Now, I know my mom didn't event this saying, because it's very common. However, when mom said it, it had a way of making the worst fears seem a little more ridiculous. She said, "What's the worst thing that could possibly happen?" She didn't just say it. She made us play it. She made us actually tell her the thought that had originated the fear and what the future would hold if such a thing should actually occur. It had a way of making the fear melt away almost every time.
I find this interesting, because as I have noticed in some of my older friends and relatives... the little molehills that they didn't deal with as younger people have become mountains as they grew into older people. The little worries and fears that they didn't hand over to a God big enough to handle them turned them into - in some cases - downright fear-ridden, worry-filled, controlling individuals. In most cases, that is very ugly. This concept is not just relegated to the world of fear either - anger, gossip, greed, paranoia, anxiety, and lust (amongst other things) like noses and wrinkles, get bigger as we get older. They make us into people who are sometimes downright difficult to be near. I think if more people would think on that question, "What's the worst thing that could happen?" they would, like I often do, find out that what they fear is actually not quite as horrifying as they originally imagined.
This makes me want to deal with my molehills before they become mountains. I know nowhere else to go but to the One who wants to bear my burdens... the One who bore my biggest burden to Calvary.
I was reading tonight, Psalm 34:2-4 My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together! I sought the Lord, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears.
I think these verses are worth another think or maybe two. For one thing, it's the humble who can hear the Lord. When I think I'm pretty great or pretty capable or pretty pretty, I negate my ability to hear what He has for me. When I magnify (or see in a larger scale) the Lord and put Him in His rightful place in my life, I (along with my issues) get smaller. When I seek to know Him better, He is more than ready to answer me and deliver me from all my fears. He sees every fear, and He knows the thinking that got me there. Ever wonder where all that ick comes from? Thought -->Feeling-->Action-->Result. And the cycle continues. Your feeling originated from a thought - usually an erroneous one if you're like me. Even if your thinking is just a tiny bit "off" - the rest spins out of control. Claiming truth over the thought restarts the cycle in the right direction.
Now, there are dozens and dozens of other verses that deal with fear and casting our cares where they belong. I am going to park it right here for now. Because I need to think on it. What's the worst thing that could happen?
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