Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Conversation (face to face) (10/07/10)
-
TITLE: Facing Fear | Previous Challenge Entry
By Sarah Davis
10/18/10 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
As Brooke analyzed the crowd she smiled as she silently prayed, “God this is your day and I give You all the glory”.
“Hello everyone and thank you. I want to start by sharing a short story with you about a girl who is very dear to my heart”.
Daisy dreamed of loving life, to be used by God to help bring His love to others. Only something held her back from being able to express her love. Fear was her main stronghold that she seemed to lack being able to control. She was afraid of being rejected and not being loved back. She allowed life to consume her with her job, kids, chores, husband, cooking and what little time she had left she spent thinking about how she wished she could be different.
Daisy writes for a Magazine and because she knows the owner so well, she has the opportunity to write from home. However, this also allows her even less contact with the outside world. She began to realize she was too comfortable in her home and how difficult it was to converse with others on a regular basis. She had few friends and longed for more, but didn’t know how to step outside her comfort zone. She went to church on a regular basis, but found it was too easy to just come and go without many noticing her or her family. When they would go out to eat, they would come into contact with other church members and every time they would get a quick wave, but ended up eating alone.
Daisy tried connecting to a few through the internet, but found most people did not respond too quickly and knew she was going to have to step outside her comfort zone and begin conversing with people face to face. Just the thought threw her into a whirlwind of fear and she clung to her comforts all too quickly.
She began to pray, “God free me from this fear”. Most days were spent in her home, but she decided she would take one step at a time and see what God could do. Her first day she decided to make some cookies and take it to a dear lady she longed to know better from her church. She wanted so badly to knock on the door and hoped maybe this would allow her a way to spend some time with this lady, but found her fear took over again that day so she left them on her front porch with a note attached. She did receive a call from the lady later thanking her, but nothing more came from it. Daisy cried desperately to the Lord to help her know how to be more friendly and gain friendship in return. She still didn’t understand why this was so hard for her.
One night she cast all her thoughts aside and went for a walk in the cool, fall evening and began to pray and talk to God like she hadn’t done in years. As she prayed and poured her heart out, she realized that her fear had not only held her back from gaining relationships with friends but had also shadowed her eyes from seeing truth. As she walked, she realized she had been blinded from seeing God’s love for her and when she faced her God and asked Him to forgive her, she found a love inside begin to grow from deep within and knew she didn’t have to fear because He would never reject her.
She continued to care for others with thoughtful gifts and found she was greeted with many hugs now at church. Day by day her fear began to fade as God began to take over in her life because He had a plan to use her in ways she could have never dreamed of.
“I started by saying Daisy was very dear to me because I am Daisy”. I wanted to begin with this story to say that when we face God and listen to truth, He will take over and mold you into a new creation and that is exactly what He did with me”.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
I was a little confused if the speaker was remembering Daisy because there weren't quotation marks around that part but when I got to the end I figured it all out.
I really like your message and it's one I definitely need to be reminded of. Thanks for sharing. I hope it will helpme to conquer my fears as well.
In reading through the paragraphs, I came across some sentences that may be classified as run-on, otherwise, I really enjoyed your story.
Very powerful piece! God bless!
I'd have liked to get to know her better--the narrative about Daisy was a lot of 'tell', but not much 'show'. And I felt the topic of face-to-face communication was only lightly touched on.
I liked that you showed Daisy having a gradual transformation rather than a totally sudden change--very true to life and inspiring.