Breaking the Fear Cycle

How to Find Peace for Your Anxious Heart

Maria Furlough

• Publisher: Revell
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780800729196
• eBook ISBN: 9781493413416
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

It seems there is more to fear now than ever, but fear and anxiety are nothing new to human beings--or to God. The Bible calls us to not be afraid on many occasions, and of course we all want to live without fear. But just how is that accomplished when every news item seems designed to get us wringing our hands?

Using her own story as a catalyst, Maria Furlough shows readers how to overcome fear for good. She calls readers to make a list of their fears, to choose to bring those fears to God rather than acting on them, and to trust God with the future. She shows how when we give God full control over our lives, choosing his sovereignty over our own ability, we can break the cycle of fear, grow through suffering, and trust God to fulfill his promises of protection and peace.

Anyone who is filled with anxiety over their personal circumstances, the state of the world today, or even their fear-clogged social media feeds will welcome this hands-on journey from fear to freedom.

1
Your Greatest Fear

What is your greatest fear?

You know the one—the one that keeps you up at night, wide awake, unable to fall asleep because anxious thoughts of it coming true swirl around in your brain.

What is your deepest fear?

You know the kind—the kind of fear that pops into your mind and then never leaves. The kind of fear that starts with a small, itty-bitty idea and then grows into a full-blown panic attack because you actually have begun to believe that the fear is going to come true.

Let’s be completely honest. If you are anything like me, you don’t even want to take the chance of naming your fear out loud. Why? Well, because there is a tiny voice inside of you that tells you if you say it out loud, you just might jinx yourself. God fearing, God trusting, and God believing though you are, you will not take any chances when it comes to your greatest fear. Your greatest fear is your holy grail. It’s yours to keep and obsess over, and you feel like there is simply nothing you can do about it.

Your fear just is. It’s part of you, and you have come to accept it. Live with it. Cope with it.

I lived there once too. I lived so entrenched in fear that it became a driving force in my life without me even realizing it. Fear seeped into my relationships, my parenting, my marriage, and my home, and it found such a comfortable place in my days that I stopped fighting it.

This was me: I was the new mom, driving across town to get a much-needed nap at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. It was a joyous time. With a healthy baby girl in tow, I drove and thanked God for the gift of her life. I was a mom! A real mom! And it felt like heaven on earth. Then it happened. My internal dialogue went something like this:

God! Thank you so much for my daughter, Faith. I love her so much, more than I thought I could love!

Wait.

I love her so much.

I love her too much.

What would I ever do if I lost her?

Wait. What would I do if I got in a car accident?

Wait. I’m driving over a bridge. What would happen if I got into a car accident and flew off this bridge into that body of water? How would I save her? What would I do?

I can’t lose her. I love her too much! I would need to save her.

Then I would go home and do what any reasonable Christ-following woman would do. I would get on Biblegateway.com and search for “verse that promises I will never drive off a bridge with my baby in the backseat.”

Ah, thank goodness, there it is! “Nothing bad will ever happen to you, your sweet baby, or any future children or loved ones. I pinkie promise. Thus sayeth the Lord.” That’s straight from the book of Keep Dreaming, Maria.

It’s not there! God’s Word is good. It is holy, reliable, powerful, mysterious, and righteous, and there are no promises that tell me my worst fears will not come true. None, nada, zip! God does not promise us a pain-free existence.

How, then, can I convince my brain not to fear the utter destruction of everyone and everything I hold near and dear? Since the Bible doesn’t ensure me that these things will not happen, and I could not find the Bible verse I was looking for, I went to my second best resource: Google.

Dear Google, what do I do if I drive off a bridge with my one-month-old baby in the backseat? Sincerely yours, Maria.

First, Google says to stay calm (awesome). Then Google says to immediately roll down the windows because that will be your escape route, and soon the water will short-circuit the electricity in most makes and models. Then, while the car is filling up with water, remove your baby from the car seat. After the car is fully submerged, escape through the window with your baby and swim to safety.

There. That feels a little better. Another Band-Aid of control placed over my fear to make me feel a little less anxious. Another case of trying to logically, statistically, and informationally appease my fear instead of diving straight into the heart of the matter.

My fears kept coming. They would come in multiple forms, and my anxious brain would come up with creative ways for my worst fears to come true. Besides driving off bridges, fears would come in the form of

tsunamis (no, I don’t live on the coast, but apparently that doesn’t matter)

cancer

brain-eating bacteria

choking

poisoning

kidnapping

regular, non-driving-off-bridges car accidents

terrorist attack

loss of a baby

nuclear destruction

I went on, half tackling every obsessive fear that popped into my mind. Then it happened.

I was going on with my everyday life, and the moment we all dread the most happened. I learned that one of my worst fears was going to come true. I was pregnant with my fourth child, and at my eighteen-week ultrasound I learned that my sweet baby boy had a fatal condition. He would survive the entire pregnancy, but after he was born he would not live past a few hours.

What do you do then? What do you do when one of your greatest fears actually comes true? All those sleepless nights, endless tears, and racing hearts seemed suddenly justified because I was right! My fears were confirmed! How could I survive this? What do you do when you cannot ignore your fearful heart any longer? When the reality of all of your anxious living slams you in the face? What can you possibly do?

May you read this, may you hear me, and may you be reassured that the ending of the story is a good one. It’s a glorious one! One in which God is fully victorious over fear even in the midst of the worst!

I learned that God has answers for us—good answers, reliable answers—and that there is a way to live in peaceful freedom from our fears. It is not an easy journey, but it is a journey in which God draws nearer than he has ever been before. When we turn to him, when we are in the midst of our fears and we still choose to stay put at the foot of the cross until God lifts us up, then we will find the everlasting peace and hope that our souls so desperately desire.

Let us tackle this question together and head-on: If God’s Word does not promise us that our worst fears will not come true, then how are we supposed to not fear?

John 14:27 states clearly and boldly, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

It’s a happy ending. I promise.

It Happened

God knew I was deathly afraid of losing a child. He also knew I was just as afraid of losing a baby during pregnancy. It is a path I knew my own mother had walked, and I politely shared with God that it was not one I ever wanted to go on. I had hopes that God would work on my terms because clearly God has given me a rational brain, and my rational brain deducted very logically that losing a baby was not best for my life.

I was eighteen weeks pregnant and so very excited to find out the gender of my fourth child. Naïve and unsuspecting, my husband and I went to the doctor for the ultrasound. On our way into the appointment, I remember casually discussing baby names. If it was a baby girl (which I was positive it would be), we would name her Elizabeth Maria; a baby boy, Gideon Matthew. Surely it was about to be the best day ever. Who doesn’t love dreaming about what their little baby will be like?

The ultrasound technician kept asking me questions. I answered them quickly and kept asking her, “Can you tell what it is yet?” I wasn’t paying attention to the concerned look on her face. I wasn’t even considering the possibility that something might be wrong.

Finally, she announced it! A little boy. The Furlough family was about to add yet another boy to the pack—my fourth child, my third son—Gideon Matthew. Then her voice broke into the silence, “Ma’am, the doctor is going to need to see you. There are some things we did not see well.”

No kidneys. No bladder.

My boy had neither.

Without kidneys, there is no amniotic fluid.

Without amniotic fluid, lungs cannot develop.

Without lungs, there is no life. No life.

Hadn’t God heard me? Didn’t he know that this was not on the list of things I could survive? Whatever happened to “God will not give you more than you can handle”? What happened to that promise? In the doctor’s office, I mustered up the courage to ask a question.

“Doctor, will he be stillborn? Will he come soon?”

“No, Maria, your baby boy will live through your entire pregnancy. He will go full term, and then he will live only for minutes or hours. I’m so sorry, Maria.”

Through my sobbing, I never felt mad at God. I never questioned his goodness or blamed him. But the fear that had gripped me for so long turned into terror, and I literally felt like I was going to die from the burden of sadness, pain, and anxiety.

I feared being pregnant with a child who was not going to live.

I feared people making comments in public about my pregnant belly.

I feared my three older children living in sadness, fear, and confusion.

I feared labor.

I feared holding him and watching him die.

I feared my milk coming in with no baby to feed.

I feared pregnancy weight gain, with no baby to show for it.

I feared loving him too much.

I feared death.

I feared pain.

This time was different. My fears were based on actual circumstances! No longer hearsay or made-up scenarios, this was real and this was happening. The Band-Aids I had created for myself no longer worked.

I no longer had a choice; I had to fight fear head-on. I had to go right to the heart of my fear, sword in hand, and kill fear dead once and for all. If I didn’t kill the fear, the fear was going to kill me.

Day in and day out, from November 22, the day of Gideon’s diagnosis, until March 31, the day when Gideon was born, I fought my fear. With God by my side, his Word my only hope, and through the miraculous help of the Holy Spirit, God taught me how to take aim at my fears.

My prayer for you is this: may you experience the freedom I experienced without ever having to live through the pain. My fear? It was redeemed through the life and death of my baby boy Gideon. With God at my side, I fought fear and I fought it hard, and God taught me a battle plan that works. May it work for you too. May it bring you hope and freedom, and may you embark with confidence on this journey, knowing full well that if he can heal a fearful soul like mine, he can heal yours too.

My assurance to you begins with this: Jesus is not a liar. If Jesus knew that the command “do not be afraid” was unattainable, he would not have asked us to do this.

In John 14, Jesus himself is at the precipice of torture. The night before he died, hours before he was about to sweat blood from anguish, he confidently spoke these words to his disciples: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (v. 27, emphasis added). Let the words of our Savior sink in for a second, and reflect on the fact that he does not lead us astray.

Peace he leaves. What does that mean? Earlier in John 14, Jesus said, “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate [the Counselor], the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you” (vv. 25–26). Peace he leaves with us; his Holy Spirit he gives to us. Jesus does not give to us as the world gives to us! His gift of peace cannot be quantified; it cannot be counted or measured. It cannot be seen nor touched, but it is real. No, not as the world gives. Not the world that constantly reminds us that we have much to fear. Not the world tha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Endorsements
• Dedication
• Contents
• 1. Your Greatest Fear
• 2. You Do Have a Choice
• 3. Fear and Future Telling
• 4. I Will Trust
• 5. Wrestling Matches with God
• 6. Believing in the Bible’s View of Suffering
• 7. Praying Faith-Filled Prayers, Not Fear-Filled Pleas
• 8. God’s Promises of Protection
• 9. Taking Jesus Up on His Offer of Peace
• 10. Living Differently, in Confidence
• 11. The Story of You
• Leader’s Guide
• Appendix: In Case of an Emergency: Bible Verses to Post around Your Life
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• About the Author
• Back Ads
• Back Cover