Casting out Fear

For many years now, I have struggled with fear. As a child, I was afraid of literally everything. Whether it was spiders, flies (they sounded like bees), the faucet that resembled a face, or the coat rack in the hallway which terrorized me in nightmares throughout my childhood; you name it, I was probably afraid of it. 

As I have grown and matured, my list of things that terrify me has shrunk considerably, but as I stare the possibility of living on my own squarely in the face, there is one fear I simply must conquer. --I absolutely dread being in the house by myself after dark. 

Now, being a grown-up sort of person, it does happen that I am at home by myself after dark periodically, and I have improved some since that first time when my parents were called away to the hospital and I stayed awake in terror all night till they got back. And it’s not as if I have any traumatic experience of bad things happening when I have stayed alone before. –I just have a very active imagination, and I was not discerning as to what I fed it with in my youth. 

So, I will be going along, minding my own business at home alone when suddenly a noise or random thought will trigger a memory of a scenario I have seen or heard of or read about and my mind is instantly planning my response to the  situation, even though it isn’t actually what is happening. Then my heart starts racing right along with my mind and then I suddenly notice every noise the house makes, each one triggering its own avalanche of what-ifs. 

Now, it might be argued that fear is a natural emotion, and that there’s nothing we can do about it. The vast number of commands in the Bible to “fear not” make it clear that God (who designed us) expects us to choose not to fear. For years, I have struggled to understand just how to do that.

Then at Family Camp this year our preacher made a statement that hit me so hard I was left nearly breathless at the simplicity and power of it. He said that the answer to fear is God.

Think about it. When we give in to fear, we are in fact choosing not to trust that God is able and willing to protect us. 

Up to this point, the main thing I have turned to as a way to stave off fear has been the television. I grew up with the television always on, and it is very difficult not to turn on the TV to “drown out” the noises that trigger the what-ifs. Interestingly enough, it doesn’t actually work. In fact, it makes it worse, because I will still think I hear something, but not be sure if I did or not because of the tv, and that triggers a whole new set of what-ifs.

I now realize that I was trusting the TV or other people to provide my sense of security, instead of simply trusting that in my need for security, as well as all else, God is enough.    

Can I say that again?

God is enough.

To be fearful in the face of the reality of His presence with me is to be like a small child, closing his eyes and believing that he cannot be seen. 

This weekend, my new determination to conquer fear was tested. It wasn’t a situation in which I was actually in danger, but I could have been, and the what-ifs began to pop into my mind. With the first what-if, I made a conscious choice not to follow that train of thought, and instead to direct my thoughts to God and the truth of His presence with me. At every step, there was a new tempting thought, and I had to decide again to fight it with truth. It was a hard battle, but it worked, and I got into my car feeling the freedom of having won a victory. 

Now, I have by no means arrived, and I will still have to battle, but I feel now that I know how to fight, and that victory is attainable with God’s help. 

I John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

God doesn’t want us to live in fear. He wants us to let His love for us cast out our fears.

Victorian Elements of Design: The Flavel House

This summer, I have been enjoying the freedom to go on some short trips without worrying about catching up on homework. (Hooray for my first completely homework-free summer!) One of my favorite things to do on a trip is to visit historic houses. On a recent trip to Astoria, Oregon, a friend and I visited the Flavel House, which is a gorgeous Victorian historic house museum. As I stepped into the opulent hall with its massive proportions and towering ceilings meant to make one feel small and insignificant, I looked around in wonder and thought how amazing it would be to live in such a beautiful place. Of course, that could never be, unless I have an unknown rich relative who lives in a mansion… but that’s unlikely.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been learning more about design recently. As I continued to survey my surroundings, I realized that, although I may never have a Victorian mansion of my own, there are some elements of design I could reproduce on a smaller scale to give the same feel to an ordinary house. I started taking pictures and mentally dissecting what made each space so beautiful. 

There were some things that particularly stood out to me that I thought it might be fun to share with you all just in case you, too, would like to make your home more like a beautiful and luxurious Victorian mansion!

·         Ovals: Everywhere I looked in the Flavel house, there were ovals: Oval mirrors, oval chair backs, oval picture frames, even oval floral motifs on the rugs! Particularly where furniture and frames are concerned, an oval shape is a good start when looking for that Victorian style.

·         Lovely Nooks: It seemed like every room in the Flavel house had a little nook with a small table and a couple chairs off to one side. This made the grand size of the rooms still seem inviting and cozy. In the larger rooms such as the dining room it was a small adjoining room, but in smaller rooms, the little nook was just a little table like the small lamp table pictured below but with a chair nearby.

·         Lace: It is no exaggeration to say that there was lace in every room. There were lace curtains, lace bedspreads, and nearly every piece of furniture had a lace doily on it. All of these lace luxuries can be easily found at a thrift store or made by hand, and can be an easy way of dressing up an ordinary window or piece of furniture and adding a bit of elegance to a space. 

·         Rich, dark wood: This was also an ever-present element of design in the house. From tables to chairs, bookcases to mantles, there were dark shades of wood as far as eye could see. Even the walls were clad in lovely wood panels in many of the rooms.

·         Velvet or Needlepoint: Many of the furnishings were upholstered in velvet, which adds a luxurious texture, especially when a velvet-clad sofa is draped dramatically with a silky velvet throw. But alongside this bit of luxury there were also chairs upholstered in needlepoint. I did notice that the needlepoint chairs tended to be upholstered only on the seat, and sometimes the needlepoint seat was paired with a velvet back. The needlepoint serves to ground the drama of the velvet and give more of a homey feel. 

From what I have observed, Victorian style is all about the details –the smallest detail can make a big difference in the overall look. So, even if you don’t live in a fabulous Victorian mansion built by an enterprising ship captain-turned millionaire, you can still enjoy the beauty and elegance of the Victorian style in your own home. 

Book Review: Dollar Tree Cookbooks

Ok, so it's confession time... I may have gone to the Dollar Tree today and I may have bought three ridiculously thin cookbooks... but in my defense, they have pictures. 

Gorgeous pictures. 

On every page. 

Honestly, I did look at the recipes themselves before purchasing the books, but to be equally honest, the pictures were a deciding factor. I'm a very visual person, and to be able to see a picture of what a recipe makes really does help.

Well played, Dollar Tree... well played.

Anyway, these three little cookbooks really did have a number of delicious- sounding recipes I am excited to try. The books on salads and smoothies are probably going to be the most helpful; Any way I can motivate myself to actually eat leafy greens is a good thing, and if I can disguise them in a smoothie, then so much the better!

The smoothie book has a good variety of smoothie recipes, ranging from dessert smoothies to breakfast smoothies, to protein smoothies and green smoothies. There are only 11 recipes, but they are diverse enough to make quite a useful little collection.

The appetizer book is probably the least useful to me, but I bought it because, like the other two, it has a good variety of recipes... and it had recipes for Baked Crab Dip and Spinach Artichoke Dip, both of which I greatly enjoy eating, but haven't tried making yet. Later in the summer if we have a good pea harvest, I want to try the Green Pea Hummus recipe. It sounds quite interesting.

Each book also has one of these helpful measurement equivalents pages

As I have mentioned, the third book I purchased contains salad recipes. Like the others, it also has only 11 recipes, but very diverse ones. For example, the book starts out with a Chili Lime Southwest Chicken Salad (reminiscent of the one I love to get at Panera), but also contains a recipe for Fruit Salad, several pasta salad recipes, and a yummy-looking Lentil Salad recipe.

Lots of bang for your buck... and maybe not such a bad impulse purchase after all!

To find these books, you can go to the Dollar Tree website here to find location near you, or you could order online... they only let you buy a case of 36, though...

Oh, and I was reminded as I looked these up on the website --there's also one about grilling.

The Importance of Family Vacations

A week ago, I traveled with my parents to my oldest nephew’s graduation. I almost decided to travel separately, partly because I enjoy driving, and partly because I enjoy the freedom to stop whenever and wherever I feel like stopping on the way back home. My dad had seemed a bit disappointed, though, when I had voiced my inclination to travel alone, so I had changed my plans. After all, it had been years since we had done a trip together, and he had planned to do some vacation-y things on the way back home. 

I am so glad I did not go with my first instinct about this trip. My parents and I had so much fun! It wasn’t as though we did anything extravagant –we stopped at a grocery store and bought food to put in our cooler for lunch in the car later, we went to a free visitor’s center museum, and we took a walk at a small state park while Daddy napped in the car. We did go to one visitor’s center museum that charged admission, but my parents are both seniors now, which gave us a discounted rate.

No, the blessing of this trip wasn’t in enjoying luxuries or in the novelty of things we did (picnic in the car, driving, going to a couple visitor’s centers…). It wasn’t even in seeing something amazing. (We got pictures of Mount St. Helens from afar, but by the time we got to the closest viewing area, the clouds had rolled in.) The joy of this trip was in the bonds developed by experiencing something together. It was my dad’s first visit to St. Helens, and it was fun to show him all the things my mom and I had enjoyed when we had visited there years before. The memories we made are now the building blocks of relationship, because they gave us a new source of conversation, reminiscence, inside jokes, and illustrations for future times together. The shared experience of even a day trip can serve as a catalyst for building relationships with your family. 

Spending a lengthy amount of time in the car together also forces a family to find things to talk about. In our case, it was the scenery, the book I was listening to (with headphones), the talk shows and music everyone else was listening to, and anything else that came to mind as we drove. Because we had such a long time together in a small enough space no one could escape into their own space, we ended up finding things to talk about that we wouldn’t otherwise have bothered to bring up in conversation.

So the moral of my trip is: even if you enjoy the independence of traveling solo, try traveling with others more often: you never know how God might use it!