Confidence Displaces Fear

I can’t express to you how much I have confidence in God’s plans. Throughout everything in my life, God has always come through and I have never had any reason to doubt Him and his plan for me.

 “Last night I couldn’t sleep very well. I was just nervous about today and I even shed a few tears of anxiety as I thought about today and what this MS thing is going to mean for the rest of my life. What type of MS do I have? What am I going to be experiencing? How will I get through in one piece? This is humiliating, going into an MS clinic, while I’m only 21, enduring the looks of pity I get from people in the clinic…”

That is an actual quote from my journal that I kept when I was first diagnosed with MS a couple months ago. Do you hear the fear in those sentences? I couldn’t write my experiences on my blog, I was just trying to survive the day. My hope was dashed and I didn’t see a way out. I didn’t think I could do it. I was downhearted, apathetic, and angry.

I’ve been through a lot, but I haven’t been more fearful than when I was diagnosed. I know I keep harping on this, but it’s constantly on my mind. And these aren’t just random fears, these are big fears. Will I still be able to be a nurse? Who would want to be with someone who has type 1 diabetes AND MS? What if I lost any sort of motor control? What if I eventually lose control of my bladder or lose any cognitive function? Heaven forbid any future husband of mine having to sit through hospital visits and having to take care of me day after day, hour after hour, if that ever happened. How could I eventually have kids knowing the risk of passing on diabetes and MS? How would I feel if those kids were diagnosed with diabetes or MS? Who would even want to have kids with someone like that? Am I going to feel sick the rest of my life? How do I combat my blood sugars and deal with MS? How am I supposed to be a nurse and take care of people when I can’t take care of myself? All in all, my fears were and are no light and momentary troubles.

But the cool thing is, is that God has a plan. And I’ve said this before. You’re probably tired of hearing it. You know, it’s easy to believe and hear that God has a plan for you. But it’s a whole different story when you have to have confidence in that unseen plan. Where’s the proof? How do I know I can be confident? Too often in my life I only see the proof after I’ve gone through an ordeal. People will tell you, that’s where faith comes in. But, if you haven’t been through those tough times, and you haven’t seen the end result through those impossible times, it’s hard to have that confidence. It’s hard to imagine an end result in which you’ve survived. And even when I have survived trials, when this trial hit me, my confidence faltered. I’m blessed in the fact where I’ve been through some of those seemingly impossible times and I’ve seen the incredible miracles that God performs, through my life and sometimes people close to me. But sometimes, even when you know that God takes care of you, your confidence falters. But through my struggles, God has always followed through on His promises. And that’s where I get that confidence. So don’t fear trials. Don’t fear the rough spots. Once you get through that trial and see the end result, your confidence in God fulfilling His plan for you displaces the fear that you will have in the future during other trials. And that is freedom. That is freedom in Christ, and that is hope in Christ. I don’t get that from anything else in the world. I love that I can proclaim this confidence to those who know me. I can share my experiences and give people hope who need it.

God is in control. He feels your uncertainty, your pain, your anger, and still He brings you to the other side with more faith and trust in Him than you thought possible. I’m excited to live this journey ahead of me, no matter what it may bring. I have a long way to go with trusting God to take care of me with this specific trial, but I can rest in the fact that my confidence in Christ ultimately displaces my fear. And that gives me freedom to keep that smile on my face and share the love God has so graciously shown me. Thanks for reading.

” ‘I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.’ “

-John 16:33

“You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.”

2 Corinthians 3:3-4