Conversatio Divina

Part 8 of 17

Using Fear to Grow in Courage

Anne Fletcher Grizzle
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Table of Contents

  1. 01.  Facing into Our Greatest Fears
  2. 02.  Courage Called Forth
  3. 03.  Using Our Fears to Fuel Courage
  4. 04.  Intentional Courage
  5. 05.  Taking Heart
  6. 06.  Daily Calls for Courage

After one Saturday Easter vigil, we gathered with a group of friends to feast, not only with food, but hearty discussion. My husband, David, and I did what we often do to encourage folks to dig deeper and share more passionately. We asked them each to write down a question for discussion that we put into a basket. One by one, each person had to pick a question and answer it (a question could be passed to someone else, although you would then be stuck without recourse with the next question you drew). Our friend BJ picked a question, looked at it and said, “I should probably give this to someone else.” Then pausing for a bit he said, “No, I will answer it.” Slowly he read the question, “What is your greatest fear?” Mind you, BJ is a rugby-playing fearless friend who has worked with pimps and prostitutes in Times Square and gone into the Bolivian Andes dozens of times to help our poor Quechua friends. He has almost died with an emergency appendectomy and falling off cliffs there, has started ball clubs in rough neighborhoods in New York, and loves a challenge. He paused and said, “I am not really a very fearful person… but I would say, something terrible happening to one of my children.” We all took a deep breath. He paused again and said, “Or my wife dying before me and my having to do my own taxes and organize my life for myself.” We all laughed; but he was serious. 

Even the most adventurous of us lives with fear. The worst nightmares we try not to think about still haunt us and actually come to reality in some cases: a tragic accident happening to us or our loved ones, a terrorist attack, slowly losing our mind, living with chronic pain, or our impending death. Then there are the ordinary fears that tie up our insides on normal days: not getting a paper written because we procrastinate, being stuck in traffic so we miss an important appointment, losing our temper with our children, or doing our own taxes when the spouse who has always done them is gone. The God who created us must be well aware of this ongoing struggle, since the most frequent command recorded in the Bible is “Fear not!” Beyond the question “What is your greatest fear?” lay the harder questions for all of us to ponder: How do we fear not? How do we move from fear to courage?

01.  Facing into Our Greatest Fears

The normal response we all tend toward is to avoid our fears. Yet the most important principle both spiritual directors and psychotherapists suggest is to face our fears. This path to overcoming fears and gaining courage requires great intentionality. As psychotherapists, we often help people face their fears through the process of desensitization by gradual exposure to an object of fear. A person afraid of flying might be encouraged to gradually approach planes, take short, easy trips accompanied, and learn deep breathing and relaxation techniques to help them conquer their fear. Probably a universal greatest fear is death, if not the life after, and how we will get there. Part of the Ignatian spiritual exercises, one of the more rigorous formation processes (traditionally practiced in forty days of silence though made accessible in modified approaches), includes an exercise in which we imagine our own death. When I first took this on, it was with some trepidation, yet after facing into it, I found some release from fear as I thought of my last hours and passage from this life. St. Benedict also suggested that monks regularly ponder their own death, particularly to cultivate humility and gratitude for the gift of life each day.  

I have tried a similar sort of mental imagining when I have worried about terrorist strikes, particularly when traveling to the Middle East. Strange though it might seem, what has helped me is thinking of three possible scenarios and outcomes that I can live (or die) with. I imagine first that I might be hit and die, then realize I would be in the arms of Jesus. I imagine next that I am hit and wounded, and I think I would feel so fortunate for not having died even though recuperation might be long and hard. Finally I think about being nearby but escaping harm and the relief of not having been hurt. When I first reviewed all of these, I suddenly realized with some relief of fear that I would be okay with any outcome. Of course none of this visualization takes away all fear. As my father told me when I was a teen, we can imagine what we will do in a crisis but we can never know until it comes. Yet facing our fears can lessen the mental hours we give to them rather than the realities of our lives in the moment. 

02.  Courage Called Forth

Sometimes courage is called forth, not because we summon it, but because in a time of crisis it rises up. Like most young Americans going for glamour, I had generally shied away from close contact with the dying. I felt like a mother bear protecting her cub when a dear friend developed brain cancer at age forty-six. Courage came from the guttural places of my being as I sought to make time with her, to gather friends to celebrate her life, help her with house practicalities, and sit with her in long, painful hours of letting go. In the process, I witnessed the raw awfulness of losing one’s bodily functions to the grip of death, but also the raw courage of a woman of faith holding onto her love of Jesus amidst that struggle. After we buried her on Epiphany, a year after her original diagnosis, her friend Kimberley wrote, “Something happened there; and something deep also happened to me. Everything has changed. The world is different now, as though the holy wheel Betsy set in motion in my heart twenty years ago made another enormous revolution and brought me 180 degrees closer to God—so much less afraid of death, and bound to Betsy and to all who loved her forever, Jesus foremost among them.” 

Although I had had no intention of facing into my fear of death, Betsy’s illness made me go there. And yes, by walking alongside her and sitting with her in bed praying as the cancer ravaged her body but not her spirit, I found that my own fear had been transformed into courage. That courage led me to run into the fire of grief rather than away from it, seeking to accompany people in hard grief as the space had been transformed from horror to holy through my experience with Betsy. 

Little did I know that Betsy was preparing me for a much longer journey facing into death, not my own but that of my twin sister, Beth. Sometimes it is as hard to watch someone we love suffer as it is to suffer ourselves. Nine months after Betsy was buried, I got the call all of us dread, the one that we know changes our life forever. My father called to say that my twin sister’s breast cancer, thought to be in remission, was now metastasized throughout her bones. She was told to go home and have a good holiday, as it might be one of her last. Again, courage was called out of me because of desperation, necessity to be with my identical twin and not have her go this road alone. 

Two feelings stand out as we have traveled this journey. One is the feeling of agonizing grief at her illness and possible death (with two young children) so raw that all the calls and cares surrounding us could not begin to touch it. The other feeling is of being wrapped in the surrounding mountain of care and community that flowed out of her cancer journey. We spent more time together as sisters, created more ministry together, laughed and loved so much more than we ever would have without this cancer. The biggest helps in trying to convert fear to courage have been holding onto others and building community—not doing it alone. I now believe the greatest tragedies lie not in suffering, but in suffering alone; not in pain, but pain born on one’s own without community and communion. 

03.  Using Our Fears to Fuel Courage

The greatest redemption of fear to me seems to be when we are able to capture the power and energy of our fears and use that to propel us toward courage and service. I remember sitting in Jerusalem around the breakfast table on a trip with my sister and friends, a journey we were making to fulfill a wish Beth had to go to Jerusalem before she died. The guide had planned for us to go to Bethlehem, but there was uncertainty and unrest in the area. So he left it up to us as to whether to go. One of the group said, “Oh Beth, we don’t want to make you more anxious. No need to go.” But Beth responded, “Of course, I want to go. I face death every day and am only here a few days, so let’s go!” Beth’s impending death gave her, and the rest of us, more courage rather than fear. So off we went, and thankfully did not let fear keep us from the Spirit’s great gifts that day of milk grotto, blue icon of Mary, and nativity cave. 

My friends Leighton and Jean Ford had one of all of our greatest fears become a reality when their oldest son, Sandy, died on the operating table at twenty-three. His death shocked and stirred their family in a profound way. One of the outcomes was to change Leighton’s vocational focus from preaching to large crowds to investing in personal mentoring relationships with young people. This deeply fruitful passion that emerged from fearful depths has empowered many Christian leaders of the next generation for kingdom purposes. 

04.  Intentional Courage

Through my counseling practice, I have been privileged to watch some people quite intentionally face into profound fears and in the process develop great courage. One of the most amazing was a young woman who faced into her paralyzing fear stemming from sexual abuse as a child. Even after the abuse stopped, psychological fear and torment remained in hidden memories, deep shame, and crippling fear in relationships. After hospitalization for suicidal depression as a young adult, she came to me to face her long, dark, inner struggles. Just to come to my office and begin to speak of what had been unspeakable took enormous courage. Much time was spent in waiting silence as she mustered that courage and only little by little spoke of what had been buried for years. Her courage to communicate moved forward over time far beyond my office into the writing of a blog that gave courage and hope to others who were suffering silently. 

The greatest movement from fear to courage came as this young woman took on a job helping inner-city youth. When a young girl confided her own abusive situations, this victim became an empowered and fierce defender. Eventually she went to graduate school in social work, transforming her own horrendous pain into the work of helping others. Harnessing the energy of fear to fuel a positive passion for good is redemption at its best. 

I have often witnessed another sort of courage in living. That is the courage of those who live in the grip of crippling depression. Having listened to the thoughts and cares of many depressed friends and clients, I know most feel it would be easier to be dead than alive. For them, the courage it takes to get up every day and to keep trudging through life tasks is remarkable. I was so deeply grateful to a dear friend in the midst of a dark depression who, when asked if she thought about killing herself, said that although she thought about it and it might be easier for her, she would not do that because of what it would do to those who love her. Her courage to live into hard days helped ease my own fears for her. 

05.  Taking Heart

In the Bible, “Do not be afraid” is often paired with the exhortation to “Be strong and courageous”—for example, both in the Old Testament as Joshua prepared for the task of entering the Promised Land, and in the New Testament as the disciples are caught in a boat in a terrible storm.Deuteronomy 31:6; Mark 6:50. As Christ-followers, we are encouraged to fear not, but also to intentionally take up our cross, run toward those in need, undertake hard journeys, go difficult places, and follow Jesus to the ends of the earth. Our life is not to be focused on avoiding pain, but rather taking on the hard things while holding fast to faith and to Jesus who promised even as he was about to leave this earth, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”Matthew 28:20, NIV. All Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™  

Going to the hard places in the name of Christ is one way to intentionally live out courage. No one in our family has served as a long-term missionary with the intentionality and sacrifice that we applaud. But we have chosen a mission and stayed involved for years: Amistad, which serves abandoned, orphaned children in Bolivia. I have been there over a dozen times. Often the State Department has issued warnings, and people are cautious about going when road blockades or strikes are reported. Although I think being wise about security is good, most of the missions I know are purposely in the hardest places on this earth. So anytime we go, there is some inherent risk and therefore fear. Yet the people we serve live there, while we go for only a few days to visit, usually with extraordinary guidance and care from local staff. 

On one trip, I arrived in Cochabamba on one of the last flights before the airport closed down. Grateful to be safe at the retreat house, I got a call from a radical staff member who said, “Anne, want to go down to the plaza where everyone has gathered?” I was thinking of my safety. He was thinking of the native people and their desire for justice and alleviation of poverty that led them to demonstrate for the election of the first Quechua native president. Would that I had a heart more like Jim Schultz. (He picked me up and we joined the hundreds of people as some of the few gringo faces in the crowd for one of my more memorable experiences of Bolivia.) 

My husband had always been regretful that he had not served in the military, but at age fifty he was recruited by the Pentagon to serve with the Afghan Reconstruction Group aiding leaders there in reconstructing their country. Danger was so great that no spousal visits were allowed, and he lived in a little container for fourteen months during this assignment. He (and we his family who supported his going) needed courage for him to go, but actually in going he also was facing down his greater fear: that of living a purposeless life. 

I took on a fearful venture the year I turned fifty, hiking Mount Kilimanjaro with my nineteen-year-old son. It was one of the hardest things I have done in my life, but one of the most thrilling also. The Swahili words that everyone who climbs learns are good words for all of us as we tackle various fears: Polee, polee, which mean “slowly, slowly.” Since then when I am facing something physically hard, I will often call to mind this long, five-day trek up to 19,341 feet above sea level where oxygen is rare, and I comfort myself by saying, This isn’t as hard as Kilimanjaro. Whatever are our hard calls in life, whether thrust upon us or taken on as a calling, they serve as an invitation for courage all through our life, reminding us of what we can actually get through, especially with the help of others. 

06.  Daily Calls for Courage

In a recent interview, one questioner looked at my materials and said, “This is full of a lot of success. Tell us about some failure in your life.” I think I failed answering that question as I stumbled around for a response, but as I reflected later what kept coming to me were all my daily failures: failure to get up when my alarm goes off, eating five cookies from the freezer when I intended to have vegetables, checking the Internet for a purchase when I am supposed to be praying, or failure to call a person in need because I have a hard time hearing their story. Most of my life is lived in the little decisions of the day. So too most of our facing of fears happens in the interior of our souls through the course of every day, often over the smaller but persistent details. This is probably the most important place to face our fears, little by little, one by one. For me, still a bit afraid of dogs from a fierce exchange I experienced as I walked to kindergarten, I need to intentionally reach out to dogs along my path. When I face a harsh word, rather than cringing inside, I hope to visualize Christ coming as he did to the disciples through a locked door and saying, “Peace be with you.”John 20:19–21, 26. And I continue to accompany my sister’s tearful sadness as well as her spunky desire to go out of this world with a few fun adventures rather than overwhelming fear. I need a lot of the Jesus who keeps coming to say “Fear not” to my weak heart. 

Note: The author’s twin sister, Beth, passed away between the writing and publication of this article. We are grateful to Anne for her courage and candor, and our prayers are with her in her grief. 

Footnotes

Anne Fletcher Grizzle is a family therapist, spiritual director, and retreat leader (AnneGrizzle.com). Author of three books and mother of three sons, she enjoys exploring uncharted territory in the woods and writing poetry these days.

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