The words from my title are forever embedded in my memory from childhood. One of Mama's many challenges with me was to help relieve the angst I felt due to an extraordinarily large imagination.
My emotions were like a sponge sucking in every nearby joy, exuberance, sorrow, or fear. I would cry when my friends were sad and sing with them when they were happy. I loved school, and I particularly loved books. One book I learned to love deeply as a child was the Bible. However, it was a great classic that brought me intense misgivings and fear.
I remember one Sunday afternoon after a church service at the First Christian Church on Kentucky Avenue. Mama and I usually would have been in the Baptist Church on Sunday morning and at the Christian church with Daddy on Sunday night, but they were having a revival, and so we went that Sunday morning with Daddy. I don't remember many details except that the preacher's sermon was from the chapter of Revelations, those people had some serious dreams to interpret. It made me so frightened that I became sick to my stomach and had to go outside for air. Somehow, Mama knew, I think she had the same sensitivities, that I was sick because I was scared to death.
Mama was a conservative protestant, but she had tools she used to live by that came straight out of a New Ager's book of how to's. She taught me Bible verses to use as mantras for many of life's issues. She didn't use the word "mantra", but that's what they were. That Sunday afternoon she pulled out the line from a verse that stated, "Perfect love casts out fear." I rarely remembered where the verses were found, but I always remembered the mantras and just when to use them. Another line for fear was, "What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." That one I used on my daughter quite a bit, but I digress. Mama told me that when I felt overwhelmed with fear to always remember the line, "Perfect love casts out fear." She reminded me that the world would not always be an easy place to live, but it didn't matter what happened around us. She was a firm believer in the second coming and hoping it would happen in her lifetime. I wasn't convinced that was such a good idea, but the message came across, and the words were firmly planted in my mind to do their work.
I haven't always lived those words, but they have always guided me, and at this point in my life, they are so real that I know without a doubt that no matter how much we seem to be at odds with each other and no matter how dysfunctional our government seems to be, that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it for now, we do not ever have to be fearful. God is perfect love, and that is what will save us all no matter what seems to be happening around us.
Today, I am sharing my mantra with anyone who reads this and asking them to plant it in their hearts. I think they are five short words that can heal an individual as well as a divided nation. One final note, not to cause dismay or fear, but I had another piece of a dream that I think related to the gutted pig. I opened the back door and a curled up, cleaned up spine was at the doorstep. Yup!
Peace. Love, Linda
My emotions were like a sponge sucking in every nearby joy, exuberance, sorrow, or fear. I would cry when my friends were sad and sing with them when they were happy. I loved school, and I particularly loved books. One book I learned to love deeply as a child was the Bible. However, it was a great classic that brought me intense misgivings and fear.
I remember one Sunday afternoon after a church service at the First Christian Church on Kentucky Avenue. Mama and I usually would have been in the Baptist Church on Sunday morning and at the Christian church with Daddy on Sunday night, but they were having a revival, and so we went that Sunday morning with Daddy. I don't remember many details except that the preacher's sermon was from the chapter of Revelations, those people had some serious dreams to interpret. It made me so frightened that I became sick to my stomach and had to go outside for air. Somehow, Mama knew, I think she had the same sensitivities, that I was sick because I was scared to death.
Mama was a conservative protestant, but she had tools she used to live by that came straight out of a New Ager's book of how to's. She taught me Bible verses to use as mantras for many of life's issues. She didn't use the word "mantra", but that's what they were. That Sunday afternoon she pulled out the line from a verse that stated, "Perfect love casts out fear." I rarely remembered where the verses were found, but I always remembered the mantras and just when to use them. Another line for fear was, "What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." That one I used on my daughter quite a bit, but I digress. Mama told me that when I felt overwhelmed with fear to always remember the line, "Perfect love casts out fear." She reminded me that the world would not always be an easy place to live, but it didn't matter what happened around us. She was a firm believer in the second coming and hoping it would happen in her lifetime. I wasn't convinced that was such a good idea, but the message came across, and the words were firmly planted in my mind to do their work.
I haven't always lived those words, but they have always guided me, and at this point in my life, they are so real that I know without a doubt that no matter how much we seem to be at odds with each other and no matter how dysfunctional our government seems to be, that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it for now, we do not ever have to be fearful. God is perfect love, and that is what will save us all no matter what seems to be happening around us.
Today, I am sharing my mantra with anyone who reads this and asking them to plant it in their hearts. I think they are five short words that can heal an individual as well as a divided nation. One final note, not to cause dismay or fear, but I had another piece of a dream that I think related to the gutted pig. I opened the back door and a curled up, cleaned up spine was at the doorstep. Yup!
Peace. Love, Linda
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