Tag: fear

On Barb’s Bookshelf: “Fearless” by Sonja Corbitt

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Sonja Corbitt’s Fearless puts fear and anxiety into a different perspective, framing them as spiritual attacks and providing tools with which to vanquish them. In short, Fearless is all about spiritual warfare.

Before reading Sonja’s book, I thought of spiritual warfare as something that was undertaken by the clergy or exorcists or very holy people. Fearless brings home the point that we are all subject to attack. “At its deepest root,” Sonja explains, “fear is a spiritual battle with a spiritual enemy.” (6)

Fear comes from the enemy: my enemy, your enemy, and God’s enemy. In affirming the spiritual basis of my fear I am not blaming myself for struggling with it; I am simply acknowledging that I am somehow being manipulated. As St. Anthony [of Padua] said, ‘Fear not. ‘Tis but an artifice of the Evil One to distract you.'” (7; emphasis mine)

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A mix of personal testimony, quotes from Scripture and the saints and plenty of wise counsel round out this book, which begs to be read (and reread) slowly and with pen and journal close by. Each chapter of the book is divided into sections that are a good length for personal meditation or group discussion. At the end of each chapter, you’ll find a review, an invitation to further action, and a God Prompt, followed by group-discussion questions.

Sonja Corbitt challenges readers to use love as a weapon against destructive fear. Advent is the perfect time to read a book like Fearless: to take up the challenge of fighting the enemy behind the fear and embracing life with confidence.

This post contains Amazon affiliate links; your purchase through these links helps support this blog. Thank you! I was given a free review copy of this book by the publisher, but no other compensation. Opinions expressed here are mine alone.

Small Success: Less Jealousy, More Compassion

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Thursdays at CatholicMom.com begin with a look at the past week’s Small Successes!

Several months ago, I got a Facebook friend request that surprised me, from a mom I’ve been acquainted with for several years through school. Our paths have crossed through various sports and school parties, but we don’t know each other at all and normally wouldn’t get past that “how’s your kid doing?” type of conversation.

This mom is a confident woman. She’s successful in the business world. She’s comfortable in leadership positions.

In other words, she’s the opposite of me.

My own bad experiences in high school (I was the middle-class kid in a very small school populated largely by the Ivy-league crowd) lead me to instinctively fear people like this mom. And by “fear” I mean “do anything I can to avoid having to be near” such people.

That’s not conducive to getting to know someone.

That doesn’t help you dispel the crazy illusions you have that someone else, someone you really don’t know, leads a charmed life where everything is perfectly perfect.

My fear of confident, successful leaders, it turns out, is born of a bad combination of social anxiety and jealousy.

There. I said it.

Anyway, I accepted the friend request and didn’t think anything of it.

Over the past few months, this mom has shared some things that have opened my eyes.

She does not live the charmed life I thought she did. This is not because she was ever lying about her life–it’s about the assumptions I made given the little I knew.

Her life is not perfect. She has problems too. She has trials and struggles and difficult situations.

She’s just like the rest of us, trying to make the best of things.

This mom has been gifted with confidence and leadership abilities. She uses them at work and she uses them as she volunteers to help her children’s schools. She’s a hard worker, not standing on some perfect pedestal.

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So for those people who say that spending time on social media is useless, I’m sharing this story. If I had not made this Facebook connection, I’d never have learned that someone I thought was so perfect, who had it all, has problems too.

I’d never have had the opportunity to feel less jealousy and more compassion.

I’m still working on the social anxiety part, but this is a big step in the right direction.

Share your Small Successes at CatholicMom.com by joining the linkup in the bottom of today’s post. No blog? List yours in the comments box!

#WorthRevisit: A Podcast About Worry that I Need to Hear Again

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I chose this fairly-recent post for Worth Revisit Wednesday because right now I’m feeling pretty anxious and overwhelmed, and I need to revisit Jeff and Gary’s podcast!

I figured I’d catch up on an episode of The Catholic Foodie Show. Yesterday’s program featured Gary Zimak, a Catholic author and speaker who lives in a neighboring town and who specializes in the subject of fear, worry and faith.

As Gary and Jeff shared about worry and how it tends to short-circuit prayer (except for the “God, help me!” kind), they encouraged listeners to remember to always praise God.

That reminded me of a line from St. Francis of Assisi’s Letter to the Faithful. Copy this down and put it where you’ll see it every day:

Praise and bless my Lord, and give him thanks, and serve him with great humility.

This is going to be my focus, going forward. Let’s see where it takes me.

from fear to faithRight now I’m reading Gary’s book From Fear to Faith: A Worrier’s Guide to Discovering Peace. It’s an excellent book to bring to Adoration. Chapters are short and there’s a lot of room for thought, prayer and reflection.

You can listen to this podcast here. When you’re done listening, bookmark the Breadbox Media website or download their app (free for iOS and Android) so you can find your favorite Catholic radio shows online or listen to archived episodes!

The fine print: the link to Gary Zimak’s book is an Amazon affiliate link, which puts a little extra in my pocket at no cost to you when you purchase this book through my link. Thanks!

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I’m linking up with Reconciled to You and Theology is a Verb for #WorthRevisit Wednesday, a place where you can come and bring a past & treasured post to share, and link up with fellow bloggers!

#WorthRevisit: Be Not Afraid

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Since it’s the Easter Season and all, I thought I’d reprise a post from an Easter long ago.

Be Not Afraid (originally posted 04/21/2006)

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I never thought of myself as the “fearful” type. I am a worrier, to be sure. I fret, and stew, and use a lot of time, effort and energy on the “what ifs.” And I’ll freely admit to being afraid of heights, bridges, tunnels, and certain insects, big ones with mandibles of death, as “Calvin and Hobbes” would say. Surely I’m not alone there.

Then the Holy Fool published this piece on fear. He reminded me that

We fear for what we will lose.
And that fear deprives us of joy. It pillages us of peace. It shatters our confidence in life. It erodes our trust in God–our very Faith.

That was a revelation to me: fear is actually a lack of faith. And I’m not talking about bugs here–but all those “what ifs” that I worry over.

Part of the miracle of Easter is that Jesus showed us that we need not fear so much. How many times in Scripture do we see the words, “Be not afraid”–even when those times seem to be times when fear is a natural response? Even Easter, a joyful event, must have inspired fear in the disciples and others. Yet at Easter Christ won the victory for us! As the Psalmist wrote, “Cast your cares upon the Lord, and He will sustain you” (Ps. 55:22)

Sometimes it’s easier to hang onto the fears, even though they are uncomfortable, because they are familiar, than to let go and let the Lord take over. But that is exactly what we are called to do.

Lord, I believe; help my unbelief! (Mark 9:24)

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