When I was seventeen I was cast as M’Lynn Eatenton in our high school’s production of Steel Magnolias. You may remember the movie in which the part of M’Lynn is played by Sally Field. It is a role probably best known for the scene in which M’Lynn breaks down crying (in the cemetery in the movie, in the beauty shop in the play). It is heartbreaking and heartwrenching to watch as this strong woman bares her grief for the world to see.
The irony for me in portraying M’Lynn is that it wasn’t this scene that put butterflies in my stomach. Having an emotional explosion on stage didn’t frighten me in the slightest. I loved being on stage. The irony is that the only nerves I ever felt were backstage, behind the curtain, moments before I made my entrance in scene one.
I would sit backstage, hugging my knees to my chest, while a friend stood behind me and rubbed my shoulders. I felt like I had swallowed piranhas who were viciously trying to make their escape through my stomach wall.
It was brutal and agonizing.
But the moment I stepped out on stage during the first scene, the very second I stepped through the door and was blinded by the spotlights, all those piranhas vanished. All worry disappeared to be replaced by a surge of adrenaline and endorphins. I loved being on the stage. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing.
How did such a thing happen? How was I able to leave the fear behind? I think I was partly helped by those spotlights. If you’ve ever been on stage, then you know that when the spotlights are on you, you can’t see any of the audience. So when I stepped out on the stage, it was like I was stepping out into my own private little world. I was able to compartmentalize the fear and embrace the adrenaline, using it for good.
I keep thinking of Peter stepping off the boat to walk on water out to Jesus. I keep thinking about how he was doing it. He was actually walking on water, until he stopped for a second and saw where he was. He lost the moment. He lost his focus and realized that what he was doing should be impossible and that was when he started to sink.
Fear, in that way, keeps us sedentary. It keeps us from moving because the task we are given seems impossible.
Recently, I finished reading My Year with Eleanor about a woman, Noelle Hancock, who takes a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt—Do one thing every day that scares you—and decides to live that for a whole year.
Fear can be a wonderful thing sometimes—it keeps us out of nasty situations, but, as Noelle learned, fear can also keep from doing things that are perfectly safe and that we might enjoy. And if we let fear run our lives, we can become very depressed, unhappy people.
Noelle takes herself to task, forcing herself to do scary things from the small—sending back a meal at a restaurant that hadn’t been cooked to her liking—to the big, swimming with sharks, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, giving up sleeping pills.
And while it seems unlikely she will ever swim with sharks or climb a mountain again, she discovers that she loves the person she has become, that she loves life more, that she’s happier and freer than she had been in a long time.
I told Pastor Debbie some weeks ago that nothing I have done at Hope has been comfortable for me. Everything I do there sends the piranhas back to my stomach. But that isn’t the point. The point is that even though I’m afraid, I don’t let that fear stop me from doing new things, mostly because I’ve put my faith in God and I trust the people He has put in my life.
And it also helps that I've wound up loving everything that I was initially afraid of.
Today I did the Children’s Talk during the 10:15 service (the children’s sermon if you will). It was my second time, my first being just last week. Like last week, my hands shook and my stomach was in knots, but the second I got to the front of the church and sat with the children, all fear vanished. And much like I was in Steel Magnolias, I loved being there. I loved talking to the kids. I loved sharing with them things I had learned.
Today’s topic was on fear. I pulled out an old Bible Storybook that my grandparents had given my dad and he had given me and I showed the kids pictures of Noah and the Ark, Deborah leading the Israelite army, Joseph in Egypt and Daniel with the lions.
“How do you think Daniel felt?” I asked the kids.
Silence.
“How would you feel if you were surrounded by lions?”
“Scared,” a girl responded.
“Daniel,” I said, “was probably very afraid, but like everyone in this book, when he was afraid, he turned to God and God was with him.”
God is with us always.
We are saved from the lions of life.
Fear not.
