I had to share this overcoming fear story because it involves someone very close to my heart. I have a granddaughter, Brinkley, who is one of the great joys of my life. She is seven and one half and her life is a true miracle. At four months she contracted RSV and the next ten days involved several ambulance rides, an air evacuation to a hospital with a pediatric intensive care unit, several days of coma and little assurance that she would survive. Survive she did and miraculously was left with no lasting effects whatsoever. There is no doubt that round the clock prayer made the difference. Everyday we are thankful for her life and the joy she brings.
Brinkley has always had an exceptional fear of loud noises. We believe it was triggered somehow by that experience while hooked up to a respirator and many other tubes and machines. Loud noises cause her extreme anxiety and we’ve had to be careful when we vacuum, mow the lawn, etc.
My husband, Gordie, began taking our grandchildren on Harley rides when they each turned five. They started out with day trips and two of them actually took ten day trips with him a few years ago. But, motorcycles are loud and needless to say, Brinkley has never wanted anything to do with them. She wouldn’t even walk through the bike shop where the six machines we own are housed for fear one would start up. Gordie has asked her several times about taking a short ride but finally gave up a while back.
This past Sunday evening just after Gordie and I returned from an afternoon ride Brinkley sauntered in the back door. She was wearing a Harley jacket and a Harley vest passed down to her by the older girls. It had been hanging in her closet for a couple of years. She walked right up to grandpa and asked if sometime he could just take her on the bike up to the mini market (a distance of about 3 miles) and if she didn’t like it she could call her mom to come get her.
Grandpa agreed that he could do that. She asked him when and he knew he’d better jump on the moment. Her face showed a bit of shock when he said, “right now” but she called her mom to make sure she kept the phone handy.
With eyes wide and teeth clenched Brinkley allowed grandpa to lift her up into the passenger seat. Grandpa was smart enough not to start the bike first. He hopped on, started the bike and before she could back out he moved out. We watched them travel down the driveway, slowly, with little Brinkley’s arms clutching grandpa, her helmet pressed against his back.
We waited for the call. Five minutes went by, then ten, then twenty. No call. Thirty minutes later we heard the sweet sound of the Harley coming up the drive. Grandpa had a smile. Brinkley, arms propped on the armrests in a very relaxed pose, had a grin bigger than her face. She waved triumphantly as they coasted past us. Come to find, after the first mile she’d begged for a longer ride.
She loved it. She can’t stop talking about it. And she has already negotiated a day trip with grandpa.
She’s seven. Most of us are a little older than that. Yet, how many deep seated fears do we let control our lives because we don’t ask God
to just take us three miles into it? We look at the whole chunk of overcoming and lose sight of the fact that it always starts with one small step. Brinkley realized that if the first three miles were more than she could handle she could quit. But evenif that happened, she would still have been three miles more into the overcoming than before.
I encourage you today to make the three mile journey. You may find, like Brinkley, that it wasn’t as hard or as scary as you thought. You may even end up asking God to go ahead and take you a few more miles. There is something brand new and exciting beyond the stopping gate of your fear. Check it out.
I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.
Psalm 34:3-5
