THERE IS NO ABYSS TO FEAR

It's an interesting fact that finding satisfactory evidence that God is in our life, is protecting us, has our back gives us but temporary surcease from our reasoning mind's anxious natterings. Which is counterintuitive but true...for me at any rate.

For example, every year on this date, February 4, I read in my "God Calling" the sentence: You will never cease to be thankful for this time when you felt at peace and trustful, and yet had no human security. I note I have written "1985" out to the side.

This was precisely the time when I was gifted with the care and feeding of the Internal Revenue Service, and I'd just left my job because it was threatening my well-being. So there I was, facing a humongous IRS bill, no job, and I was not panicked. I assumed...and even told my bathroom mirror...that I felt calm because the circumstances were so immense, I couldn't comprehend the whole mix and mess.

Then I read that "you will never cease to be thankful for this time when you felt at peace and trustful and yet had no human security," and I quite literally fell to my knees and thanked God for my everything just exactly as it was right at that very minute.

And I have never ceased to be thankful for that time of peace and trust in the midst of my own personal hoo-boy! Doesn't it seem reasonable then to expect that after that I'd be living in a cloud-free world...never again a fearful thought much less a panic attack? That's why we're warned against expectations, I reckon. For I have had my share of angry thoughts and panicky moments up to here and now.

The gift of grace and spiritual growth is that I have experienced the God of my understanding snatching me back from my own abyss. I experience that grace whenever anxiety leads me over to that abyss and tries to get me to peek over. That's when I remind myself that there is no abyss to fear. There is no me to protect. There is only God. And I know gratitude.

Thank you.