I am not the worrying kind. But sometimes I’m afraid of the dark. Of the minor possibility of intruders. 

Sometimes I’m afraid he’ll realize it’s more of a burden than a benefit to love me. 

Sometimes I’m afraid of how the people I love are changing. Sometimes I’m afraid of how they are not. 

My back aches on the morning of my 29th birthday. My soul too, a little. I am afraid that my life will slip away, buried by my selfishness. Birthdays are the worst for entitlement and self pity. 

I get too caught up in hoping people will say nice things about me. 

A few weeks before, she asked the group if anyone wants to share their struggles with fear. I stay silent as every other person opens up.

How can I tell them I’m afraid of the dark? 

“Make your mind up about some things,” she says. I put it on paper and stick it to my wall. “Just get up every morning and make your mind up.”

Make your mind up that her mood doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you anymore. Make your mind up that there will be strength to forgive, strength to grieve and tenacity to grow. And you will be okay if the worst happens. And God won’t throw His hands in the air at you because He’s already put them on a cross for you. 

“Could you pray I would sleep?” I ask her. I have more faith in the power of my worst fears than in the power of a God who loves me. 

On the morning of my 29th birthday, I read Psalm 18. “Then the channels of the sea were seen and the foundations of the world were laid bare at your rebuke, O LORD.”

How terrifying. How powerful. 

“For it is you who light my lamp; the LORD my God lightens my darkness.” 

I almost miss the passage from sleep deprivation and have to read it again. 

I must take Him for His word. 

I must make up my mind, every day for the rest of my twenties. He is more powerful than the power of my fear.

I make up my mind that I love Him and He loves me. Frightened, little me.

I will be obedient. I will not fear.

And that is enough to lead me through the dark.