So for the past few days, I’ve been experiencing a dash of writer’s block.

It’s weird. I have a running list of inspirations, observations, unexplored topics, and incomplete pieces that I keep on file, so I rarely, if ever run out.

But this week I got stuck.

I struggled terribly with writer’s block in high school and college, for a number of reasons.

I was a perfectionist. And a headcase. And I took myself way too seriously. I hated drafts, and process. I would try to write simultaneously for content, structure, and style, hoping to create something beautiful in one shot. I spent a lot of time staring at blank pages and screens. It was a mess.

As I grew up, I overcame those issues. Email helped. Texting helped. And church helped. When Sunday morning comes, you can’t ask for an extension. The people are there. What you wrote is what you’ve got.

And after years of practice, now, when I sit down to write, I can always start something.

So I was kinda surprised to be stuck this week.

And I was talking to my wife, who has a way of getting to the heart of the matter, and she said why don’t you write what’s going on with you?

And then I got it. Because I didn’t want to talk about that.

This week, I’ve been wrestling with fear.

Last Friday, Lori got Covid. So we’ve been home, together.

I have been the hands and feet of the operation. With butterfingers, two left feet, and all.

And I was confronted with just how much unprocessed trauma I still have regarding Covid.

And I know we’re both vaccinated, though we are overdue for a booster. And I know that Omicron, broadly speaking isn’t as severe as it’s predecessors.

But Covid threw me for a loop.

Our city turned into an ICU.

Our church lost over a hundred people. For a season, we did nothing but funerals.

I lost dear friends, including some of the most courageous people I know, the ones who taught me to stand tall, and not be afraid.

And while I was grieving them, legions of vocal, even gleeful critics were sneering at their weak immune systems, or misdiagnosis, or lack of faith, or straight up denying this was even happening, when they could have just said nothing.

That messed me up.

I am not a logistics guy. Not 24/7.

I am concentrated focus followed by the need to regroup.

So managing details just felt like being in a constant state of fight or flight.

And over the past 2.5 years, I had become sharper, harsher, and more agitated.

Especially because we’re all in this together, but it constantly seemed a lot of people didn’t get that memo.

So every day, I wrestled with fear.

Here’s the thing about fear: we are rarely honest about it.

There are likely people reading this right now who are disappointed, shocked, or amused by what they see as my lack of faith, or lovingly preparing a resource list of scriptures that tell me to fear not.

And I know those scriptures. I cherish them. They anchor me.

But the list doesn’t tell the whole story.

The Bible tells us, constantly, not to be afraid.

And that’s because constantly, we will.

There was a clothing brand that was popular when I was in high school: No Fear.

Legions of adolescent rebels I knew had the shirts and the stickers on the bumpers of their Volkswagen GTIs.

And it always struck me as misguided.

I would have signed on for “No Hesitation.”

Because the absence of fear is not the critical moment.

That’s not when we demonstrate our grit.

The turning point is when you feel fear and decide to keep going.

It’s when you face fear, and choose to trust God, or your skills, or your hours of preparation, and you take your best shot.

And I know believers, and tough guys, who will tell me they have no fear.

And I also know they are lying. Or are so detached from the life of their emotions that they are able to lie to themselves.

If we are maturing to an understanding that it’s ok not to be ok, that a full range of emotions are part of a mature healthy life, faith or otherwise, then we can courageously look our fear in the eye and acknowledge that it’s there.

Fear is part of life. It keeps us alive.

You may have a worldview or a disposition that prompts you to face your fear.

You may not back down from people.

But nobody looks at the charging rhino and puts up their dukes.

You don’t stand up to an avalanche.

In the 80s, most of us didn’t just look at HIV and say, “BRING it!”

We took it seriously, and adapted.

Or we didn’t, and paid terrible prices.

Life is not just an ongoing episode of Cobra Kai.

And the crane kick won’t work against a tsunami.

There are times when fear will make you move to higher ground.

Just the same, we should fear our own self-destructive tendencies

I’m afraid of not fulfilling my promise in life. It makes me move.

I’m afraid of messing up the good and perfect gifts God has given me, like my marriage.

It makes me set boundaries and try harder.

I’m afraid of my own addictive tendencies, and my predisposition toward self-deception. They keep me near the cross.

Today I am wrestling with fear.

But tomorrow, I will win.

And then sometime soon I will start the next round.

May you face your fears today, and every day.

And may you graduate to new fears as you grow stronger.

I’m rooting for you.

And I believe that we will win.