Hi friends! It’s Casey :). So, I have a huge struggle with fear.
It is probably the sin in my life that I have to fight against the most. I am constantly saying throughout a week “fear is not of the Lord” and just desperately trying to cling to that.
It sounds silly really when I write it out. But some days it just consumes me.
Fear of people.
Fear of loss.
Fear of rejection.
The interesting thing is when I started blogging I didn’t initially realize how much you open yourself up to criticism. People having opinions on your life choices… how many kids we want, what we spend money on, who we are as people. There have been times it has caused me to hold back in my writing…just being paralyzed with fear.
One of my all.time favorite books is “A Beautiful Offering” by Angela Thomas and she writes this beautiful quote about open hands…
“When a woman has a kingdom heart, she has an active understanding of what matters most to the heart of God. She lives in the balance of passion and contentment. She learns to love well, give without regard to self, and forgive without hesitation. The woman with a kingdom heart may have a duffel bag full of possessions or enough treasures to fill a mansion, but she has learned to hold them with an open hand. Hold everything with open hands. I don’t think we are ever allowed to grab hold of anything or anyone as though they matter more than the kingdom of heaven. When you hold relationships with open hands, then people come in and out of your life as gifts of grace to be cherished and enjoyed, not objects to be owned and manipulated. And then when you hold your dreams with open hands, you get to watch God resurrect what seemed dead and multiply what seemed small.”
This quote has impacted me greatly.
Trying to hold not only my children and my husband with open hands, but even opinions and judgements from others. I guess I haven’t completely figured this all out yet; I for sure don’t have the answers but I know I can’t live and/or write in fear…
I have to be willing to open up my hands and release the grip…just give it all to Him.
This was so beautiful and can’t wait to hug you sweet girl and hear your heart speak at the conference!
I have struggled with fear all my life as well.. and you are SO right.. fear is not of the Lord, and it has no right to consume you each day. One thing that I’ve been focusing on and and encountering lately is that the incredible, fearless, healing, and miraculous power of God is in ME, and it’s in each of us.. like for REAL! I don’t know why it’s so hard to understand that, but I’m starting to “get” it, believe it, and actually live it! YOU, Casey Wiegand, are capable of living fearlessly, capable of transforming lives, capable of conquering anything life throws at you because the power of God lives in you and HE says you can.
Expectations can change everything. If you wake up expecting that God will move, and expecting that you will live fearlessly, then you will!
You are an incredible woman with an incredible God that lives in you! I can’t wait to join you at the conference.
Blessings,
Lauren
I feel you girl! Thanks for sharing your vulnerabilites. I have a blog post about it on my blog that you might like to read:
I don’t want to talk about being pregnant. My pregnancies were not particularly enjoyable experiences. I don’t want to talk about the swelling, the hip pain, or the hemorrhoids; the nausea, the enormous boobs, or the constant fatigue.
I don’t want to talk about the fear of loss, of how it felt to have my tiny baby swish inside me, while being afraid that something might pull us apart.
I don’t want to think about my friend’s baby who died late in pregnancy when his umbilical cord wrapped too tightly around his neck, or of the babies who simply fall out through a weak cervix, too young to survive.
The three pregnancies my husband and I lost all happened very early- around week five. The doctor referred to them as “failed pregnancies,” and not miscarriages. They were early enough to cause only transient emotional pain.
Two of these happened before our first child, Emberly, was conceived, and were for me more about the loss of the title of “mother,” than the actual loss of a child. For the small window of time that I saw two lines on the stick, I had the potential to become something great.
And then that potential was gone, washed down the toilet.
When I was pregnant with Emberly, part of me didn’t want a baby shower. I was afraid that something bad might happen. I didn’t want to have a room full of gifts that I might have to return, reminding me of how close I had come.
The part of me that held onto hope was bigger, though, and I did have one. Afterward, I set up the crib and put away the baby things. One friend had brought me some scented pouches that I put in Emberly’s closet. When I think about this time of waiting, with my swollen belly and the hope of new life kicking inside me, I see an empty room, sunlight filtering through the windows, a crib just waiting for a tiny newborn to take up residence, and I smell the warm and powdery sweetness of those pouches.
Emberly came. When the doctor handed her to me, wet, with a towel wrapped around her, she looked right at me. I touched her tiny purple fingers, and rubbed the rough towel against her soft skin to wipe off some of the wetness. I looked into the eyes of my daughter, and in that moment, became a mother.
Later, I birthed a son, Breckin, and became a new kind of mother. I have three sisters and no brothers, so I imagined having a boy would be difficult or strange. So far, it isn’t. Breckin didn’t look into my eyes, but he did started nursing the night he was born, and he and I were able to bond in a way that Emberly and I hadn’t.
I didn’t want to talk about these struggles, but I think I needed to. They brought me to where I am- a place that is so wonderful, and irritating, and all-encompassing, and that makes me vulnerable to so much more loss- yet that I wouldn’t leave for anything in the world. I am a mother. And that is something I want to talk about.
You bless me. The end.
well said!
GREAT post! :) You are such an inspiration! Wish I could come hear you speak! :(
Not only is this what I need to hear everyday, it’s what I need to hear RIGHT NOW. fear and selfishness are too close to my heart and they aren’t welcome.
Such truth! I’m definitely saving this quote–so beautiful put!
It absolutely does *not* sound silly. It resonates with me deeply, as does your honesty. And that quote! Thank you for that.
Love to you, friend. So excited for our time together, both in person in October and virtually before & after. xo
God did not give us a spirit of fear but of love and of power and a sound mind. I quote that to myself very often. Thank you for sharing this. Everything you said really resonated with me and my own struggles with fear. I am writing out that quote and posting it in my home. :)