Fear

Is there anything you’re afraid of?

I have a good friend who is terrified of roaches. And he's not a kid. He's a grown man!

I have to admit I love to pick on him. I bought some roaches....real, live bonified roaches! Do you know you can buy real, live Madagascar roaches on the internet? They hiss and everything. Apparently, people buy them to feed their snakes and other reptiles. You can even choose males or females. So I bought 3 or 4 and put them in his desk drawer. But first I bought a couple hundred plastic, very real, authentic-looking roaches and spent a few weeks scattering them throughout his office. By the time he got used to seeing the plastic roaches the live roaches arrived and I just plopped them right down in the middle of a pile of plastic ones in his middle desk drawer. It was too funny. When he opened his desk drawer and saw those big antennas moving, he screamed like a girl. But he was a great sport about it. He even framed one and gave it back to me as a present.

You know, we all have things we are afraid of.

We’re afraid of the dark.. I have a friend who went to college with her night light. We all have fears of things that go bump in the dark. But our greater fears are those personal issues we keep hidden in the dark.. our addictive behaviors, our shame, our pain, our sorrow, our grief. I have learned that all these things are easier to deal with when you drag them out into the light... when we face them head-on. When we bring them out of the darkness and address them in the light, they lose their power.

Don’t let your fears paralyze you. Find a trusted friend or counselor you can share your darkest moments with. Because if you’re looking, there’s always hope...