A Fear and a Cure

I have written before about my fear. It is a common fear shared by many. So though I might make light at my fear of the dark... get it light, dark? ...anyways, I am afraid of what could be out there, even if it is nothing. But the other day, I was lying in bed and I felt a rush of worry, almost a bit of dread wash over me. Something came into my head that scared me more than the dark.

The last few days I have had the though keep popping into my head. While I was listening to the sermon at church, while I am selling car parts, it even popped into my head while I was playing Minecraft. Even writing about it now, kind of makes me feel uneasy.

I am very much afraid of getting older. OK, I know someone out there just laughed as they read this. Why would you be afraid of growing up? No its getting older. My church is full of old people and as very sad it is to say, their numbers are slowly dropping because of death. Maybe saying of getting older isn't exactly the right thing, but its the best way I can think of to say it.

I like to think of myself as a rather smart person. I love to read and study whatever might be interesting to me at the time. I love to learn. I also love to do stuff. Exercise and work out, though to be totally honest with you, I don't do it much anymore, and by much I mean at all. The problem is, getting old means things hurt more, I already feel a rather dull constant pain in my knees. I don't want the pain to get worse, I saw what my mom had to deal with before she got both her knees replaced in her 40s. I don't want to lose the small useless information that I have acquired over the years.

But what it really all means, I don't want to get old because that means I am closer to death, and what if death does come, and I come before the Lord and he says "I don't know you." I am not too worried about the idea that there is no God at all. If there is none, and I die, then I just cease. I'm not worried about the thought that maybe we get reincarnated. Because if we do, then when I die, I just come back and do it again. What makes me so much more scared of the dark, is the thought, What if I die, and I let God down or worse. Showbread said it well when they sang:

"Now here I am, as I've grown to know You, still haunted by my fears and my doubts
Just a man, just a vapor, just a waste of your space
All the good that I've done is in spite of myself
I’m not sure that I can look You in Your face when I finally set foot in Your kingdom"

I love God. I do. I want nothing more than to make him proud of me. But what if in trying to make him proud, I get prideful and end up letting him down. What if that horrible part of me where the sin has taken its horrible hold on me, has kept me from really giving my whole to Him, and he just simply doesn't know me? That thought seriously scares me. I have even cried, praying to God, that he take these thoughts from me, that he holds me and brings me peace. Then he does just that.

Every time I have felt so bad that I am the worst of us all, God can't possibly love me, he holds me and lets me know, in his own quiet way, that he loves me. I still am scared of the thought of dying, and most times its only because I don't want it to hurt, but at least I have a God who will reassure me over and over of his great, amazing love.

An no time of the year is a better reminder than Christmas. Christians celebrate the birth of the assured hope, and the most amazing love there could ever be. Jesus might not have been born when we celebrate Christmas, nor all the things we do totally Christian around this time of the year, but that isn't what it is about. It is not about being with your family or the whole present thing, it is about receiving into your heart, the gift we really dont deserve, nor could ever earn, and embracing THE Family that it brings.

Christmas is about hope. Christmas day is not the end of the season, it is just the start. At least it should be. It should be the start of the single longest holiday season ever. We should be celebrating his Birth, life, ministry, all the way to his death on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter Sunday. (I was going to call it by a better name, Resurrection Sunday, but it felt weird using resurrection twice like that. So bare with me on using Easter.)

Got the pic from this place.

So through the winter and into spring, we should be celebrating. Because during this season, God has given us all the reasons never to fear what might come when we die. Sure, because I am a mortal, (Don't let that get out.) I will still feel that horrible fear inside, as I worry about letting Him down. However, I can embrace the Truth and keep it close to my heart as a reminder when I am afraid.

It is OK to fear what comes after death, not too many people have gone to the other side and returned. It is an unknown to many of us and like the dark, it is the unknown that we are actually afraid of. If you keep Jesus ever by your side that when you do feel that fear, you can let the guy who single-handedly defeated death bring you a wonderful peace. Again, when that fear is creeping in, Showbread managed to say so well what it is like when Jesus is close by:

You place Your hands around my heart, You quiet the emptiness in me
A king that kneels, a God made a servant, You set the captives free
You wait for me, a wretch of a man, no record of wrongs do You keep
You are comfort when I mourn, You are strength when I am weak
Jesus Christ, the king of kings
Though we ache, though we cry, never break, never die
We sing of His great love again and again
And His love reigns forever, and forevermore
Forever and ever, Amen

Musing of the Stars

As I was writing a previous blog, something came to mind, a great analogy of sorts. But first let me tell you some sciencey things. About some awesome stars in our universe.

In science there is a thing called Gravitational Compression. That is when gravity compresses the mass of an object, reducing it in size, but increasing its density. In the life of a star, gravity begins to pull in and collapse molecules until fusion begins. In short, Gravitational Compression is what pulls the stars to start shining. Some stars, which are called main-sequence stars, like our very own sun, meet an equilibrium of sorts where the pressure of hydrogen to helium fusion and the pull of gravity balance out and the sun burns for millions of years until the hydrogen is nearly used up. The thermal pressure is reduced and at this end of the Sun's life, gravitational compression will turn it into a white dwarf.

"White dwarfs are thought to be the final state of all stars whose mass is not high enough to become a neutron star—over 97% of the stars in the Milky Way."

A white dwarf.

Sometimes the compression is greater than the fusion reaction and the star burns its fuel faster. This is usually found on stars much more massive than our own. They end their lives in a supernova. Then Gravitational Compression continues until the star is either a neutron star, or a black hole.

A neutron star variant called a Pulsar.

"Neutron stars contain 500,000 times the mass of the Earth in a sphere with a diameter of around 16 mi."

So what does this bit of science mean? A star, under extreme pressure can either turn into something really pretty cool, like a white dwarf star, or explode in glory as a supernova. Sometimes, if it is big enough, can even become a black hole, which is what keeps our whole galaxy together in its beautiful spiral across the vastness of space. We are about 25,000 light years away from our black hole (Sagittarius A*), and still can feel the effects of this wonderful creation.

If you really stop and think about life, and our will to serve God, we are very much like these stars. Sometimes we have so much pressure from our lives, that we feel compressed, feel like we are burning out, our personal light is fading and we cannot escape the coming end. These feelings come from things like stress and Depression. We feel like we cannot go any farther, we are finished, that God doesn't care anymore. But this is where we have a choice.

If you want to go out as a rather common way of stars, as a simple white dwarf, who will probably end up being consumed by a bigger, brighter star, you can chose to give up. You don't have to push anymore, just give in and let life run its course. Chose to be the 97%.

Or you can chose to live for God. The outcome is very similar your short story called Life, will end at the moment of your death. But what you turn into is drastically different. You can shine so bright, so powerful, that you can be seen hundreds even thousands of light years away as a bright burst of light in the darkness. You can be a supernova for God's glory, and be written, with a permanent role, into the greater story that is God's unending glory.

And sometimes, if we are lucky, we can be even more. When some stars die, they explode and leave behind large beautiful nebulae. In those pretty clouds of gas and debris, are all the elements that enable new stars to be born and maybe some planets. And each star born from the death of the last one, has yet another chance to shine so bright and beautiful. God uses the death of something beautiful to support and house things even more beautiful.

He can do it with you, and the best part that not even the stars are lucky enough to have, is we don't even have to die. You can be a nebula, a neutron star, or even a pulsar every day. God wants us all to be shinning and wonderful beacons of his eternal love. Some of us may die spreading God to the world, and those that do, you are so special and amazing. But this life, our story, is not our end. Ours has no end. Ours only has God and I can't think of anything better to have for forever.

God can and will use us in our most broken moments. Our most compressed times, which we must push with every ounce we have through them, God is ready to ignite our lives. And when we do ignite, every Christian should be striving and pushing for a chance to be that next nebula that God uses to produce even more stars to sing his glory.

Not mountain Nor Valley

I started this blog as a way to out my creativity, sharing stories, poems, and other ideas. Sometimes I feel like there is a dry spell over my thoughts, like anything I can think of is dumb and not worth sharing. I try my best to let people see a better view of Christians, and to share my art with the world in hopes someone out there might might be helped, inspired, or benefit in some way of my musings and ramblings. When I look back at what I have written I see a trend of dreams and authenticity that I really would love to see everyone reach.

In one of my more recent blogs, and ones before as well, I said God wants us to have our dreams to the fullest, and he is willing to do whatever he can to make it happen, when the time is right. God does love us but so many things can keep us from being who we are meant to be and who we dream to be. Things like stress.

Stress builds up in us and eventually it erupts into a volcano of broken trusts, dead friendships, and hurt feelings. And the worst part is stress comes from just about everything. You get stressed at work, home, church, playing games, watching TV. Everywhere you turn, you are bombarded by stress and things that want to stress you more. I bet some people will argue with me, and some might agree, but even doing what God wants us to do gives us stress.

When we think "God wants me to do what?" we begin to worry, we begin to be stressed out. We think we have to do so much on our own, and we quickly lose what God wants us to do and replace it with something a little more twisted. I know I am this way. I don't want to leave my comforts and have to worry about where I am going to sleep or where I am going to get some food. I like my comfort, but God wants us to trust him, so the lack of comfort creates stress and He alone is a great stress relief.

I know when I start thinking about what God might actually want me to do, I right away start saying things like "I can't do that. I am not good enough to do that." And any number of things that put me back down instead of letting myself get picked up into God's story. It is hard for me to keep in my head, but there in Him, you can let the stress finally have a little rest as you are filled with the comfort of Jesus.

Depression also often keeps us from achieving that real us. Not just, "Woe is me, my boy/girl-friend broke up with me!" but a depression deep inside ourselves that never feels good enough. Never can see the light in the dark because we feel alone, broken, scared, insecure. Depression is a very real and very serious problem for all people. I find myself losing my temper more when I am feeling depressed. Some people feel the only way to end it is with the end of their lives. Depression really is a feeling of being pressed down by force.

Stress and depression are a very closely related issue that arises in our everyday, chase the American Dream lives. We are told to work harder, work faster, that we are expendable, that our ideas aren't good enough, that we have dry spells that keep us from things we love to do and the all will boil down to over stressed and deep depression. That is if we don't let God lead us through the darkness.

God has eyes that can pierce any darkness, and a heart that loves so far beyond anything we can imagine. In our eyes, the greatest love you can have for anyone else is willingly laying down your life for them. Which truly is a great and marvelous love, considering this is the type of love God showed to us while we were still horrible and unlovable people. But God's love goes much farther beyond this, to a love so full and pure and yet my words are failing to capture anything close to that love.

Sure God is above all things, but he still wants to be with all the things he created. But we keep ourselves distant with stress, worrying, depression, anger, jealousy, and hate. Though we keep pushing away, God is trying everyday to reach right to our hearts. In the stars, in the flowers, in the depths of the oceans, to the highest peaks, he wants each of us to come to Him willingly.

Stress and depression isn't going to stop being a problem until God finally comes with an end and a new beginning. But He has given us ways to reduce the pain, ease our hearts, and learn to be happy again. Jesus will be with us, the Spirit will pray on our behalf when we are without words in our prayers, God will be waiting like a father as his child takes those first shaky steps toward him.

Together in love and friendship, the Church can be a big brother or sister in supporting the young ones as life throws mountain after valley that we need to cross. Together we can show the world that Christ has come. We can show them a glimpse of the love God has for us. That when life is hard, we are most crushed, that we have the ability to shine the brightest.