Bel’s offer on her dream ranch is accepted, but on the brink of realizing her dreams, she struggles to move past the fears holding her back.
Last week I told you about my dream ranch – the one that God put right in front of my face? I stepped up in faith and made the offer last week. Today, I have a contract on that ranch contingent on my selling my home and closing by May 3, 2011. That’s right, the ranch of my dreams is poised to be mine.
About the time I realize
d that dream was becoming real, the terror hit. The scary voices began to have a field day in my brain so much so that my physical body literally shut down. As quickly as you can snap your fingers, I was frozen in fear.
What am I doing? I can’t sell my house that quickly. I have so much to do to get it on the market. How will I ever pack it all up and move. What am I thinking? I can’t do this. Just because it’s my dream doesn’t mean I should have it. What if I move and the lose everything? What if I can’t keep up with the ranch? What if I end up homeless on the street?
It only got worse from there.
The scary stories escalated to the point that I couldn’t even breathe. I sat on the couch and sobbed for three hours, terrified of my dream coming true, sobbing harder than I can ever remember sobbing in my life. Praying for someone to save me from myself. Praying for God or the angels to come and take me away from my life and my terror. The blackness was overwhelming.
As I write this it seems ridiculous. And yet for that night, my fears were real. The more fear I allowed to enter my thoughts, the larger my terror grew, feeding on itself, seeking to hold me back from my dream, from my life, from myself.
It wasn’t really about the ranch. I knew that even as I sobbed, gasping for breath. This was about my faith and its power to release a deep-seated fear that has held me back for my entire life. We all have those fears — the feeling that we’re not good enough, don’t deserve abundance or joy. These are the beliefs we create in our childhood that limit us as adults. I know those fears well in myself. I’ve cajoled them and managed them, peeling off layers and layers. But deep, deep down, those fears held fast, influencing my life in the subtlest yet oh-so-powerful ways.
By stepping forward in faith, I triggered the release of my deepest fears. The release itself pretty much sucked: I was wrecked for two days after those sobbing hours. But then, the fear began to lift. I can feel the hole in myself where it used to live. That negative pulling -me-downward feeling, the one I’ve grown accustomed to for my entire life, is lessening every day. I feel more empowered than I have in years — and it’s only getting better, and better.
God told me that in faith there is no fear. What I didn’t understand from that lesson is that faith conquers fear, when we step out in faith.
Today I understand that, completely. On the other side of faith I am finding peace.
And I can hardly wait to thrive on the ranch of my dreams. Here we go!
Photo Credit
“An autumn morning” bhermans @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
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