Relief is Gained when Facing the Fear, Not Running Away from It

This evening I feel very much better. Not sure how it happened, but I think it is by the grace of God. Yesterday my wife gave me a book by Timothy Keller titled “Walking with God through Pain and Suffering”. It made me realize that this is the time where I can find how precious Jesus is.

It still does not change my feeling this morning though, even this afternoon. But with my wife’s continuous encouragement, I finally faced my fear, opened my work laptop and started to look again the materials that made me want run away two days ago. Somehow, by God’s grace, it does not look that bad. Yes, until now I still haven’t got it done. But a miracle happens in a sense that I started to be interested in it, being curious on it, instead of making it as a very big burden on my shoulder.

Today it is also interesting as I started to see that this struggle happens for good. I have been saying that I am disappointed of myself to fall into this vicious cycle again after 5 months of maintaining my emotion - so I said those periods are good, or the ideal. But after listening to my wife’s sharing on how arrogant I was in parts of those period - for example I was angry when receiving feedback from others as I felt that I was confident on my choice, I started to think that it was also not that great. In fact, it is good that it finally stopped and now I learn from the beginning again to be humble.

I am not sure how long this feeling will last. Tomorrow I may wake up again with negativity, may be not. But one thing I need to remember is that my goal is not to become the same as the first five months of this year. I need to remember that I am not always right, in fact most probably almost always incorrect or incomplete looking at how yesterday I could not even know how to mop or dry clothers. I need to remember that I am limited and my emotion is still under construction, instead of the wishful thinking of becoming others who I admired either because of their monetary superiority, able to work overseas, or full of wisdom.

Also, in any case, I need to embrace that suffering is part of life, and the good news is that there is God who is willing to be walking in the fiery furnace with us.