What if ?

I am currently part of a study on the book of Esther with a group of women at our church.  I am learning so much.  It is amazing how much your life and heart can change when you intentionally study the word of God.

Just this past week as part of the study we were asked to think about the "what if's" in our lives that cause us to be caught in a grip of fear.  The things that we fear above all else.  What we would consider our worst nightmares.  The kind of things that would cause us to say, "If that happened to me, I don't think I could make it."  We all have them.  If you were to ask me what my greatest fear is, I would say it is that someone I love would die (most specifically my husband or children).  It is really hard to even type the words, I am just being honest.  It is not something I think about very regularly (thank goodness) but it is one of those things that creeps in my mind sometimes and as the fear increases, God decreases.

All of this got me to remembering a dream I had when I was about five months pregnant with Ashlyn.  At the time, I only told Troy and my family about it.  At this point in my pregnancy everything was going great and there were no causes for concern at all.  I woke up one morning very early after dreaming with tears coming down my face.  Once I was awake enough, I realized that I had been dreaming that our baby was born with something wrong with her.  The tears kept coming and I was really bothered by it.  The dream was vivid enough that I could feel the emotions.  Troy leaves our house really early in the morning and wasn't in bed anymore so I called his cell phone.  He happened to still be downstairs in our house when I called and came to our room when he realized I was crying.  Through tears I told him all about the dream I had just had.  I told him how in the dream a doctor told me that something was wrong with our baby.  I also told him that my mom was in the dream and that she and I were walking down a hallway together in a hospital going to see the baby and that my mom told me that the baby's face looked different.  Soon after that I woke up.  I very much remember saying to Troy that early morning, "What if something is wrong with our baby?" I also remember saying something like, "If there was something wrong with our baby, what would we do?  How would we handle it?"  Even as I am typing this, it weirds me out that I had that dream because of all that took place months after it.

Months later when our Ashlyn was put into my arms and a doctor really did say to me, "We believe your daughter may have Down Syndrome," I didn't remember the dream at first.  A few days later while we were still in the hospital, I did.   I reminded Troy about the dream.  I remember reminding my parents and my sister about the dream.  I really don't place much stock in dreams.  I don't try to interpret them or give them meanings.  I am sure almost every pregnant woman has dreams of some sort about her baby while she is pregnant.  I don't think the dream really meant anything except to cause me to remember that when I was carrying Ashlyn, before I ever knew her sweet little body carried an extra chromosome, I had asked the question, "What if.....?"

The author of the study on Esther (Beth Moore....love her!) talks about how most of our "what if" questions lead us to a conditional faith.  A faith that trusts God simply not to allow the things that we fear the most to ever happen to us.  We simply trust God just to not let it happen.  But, what happens when it does? Where is our faith then?  The truth is that most of the things that we fear the most often don't ever even happen anyway.  But we consume ourselves with fear worrying over what might happen and the fear can overtake us.  Fear increases, God decreases.

Beth Moore says in this study, "Our conditional trust not only makes us an open target for torment; it also positions us as negotiators and beggars before God instead of secure children who trust their lives to their faithful Father.  The most critical breakthrough of faith you and I could ever experience is to let God bring us to a place where we trust Him - period.  We don't just trust Him to let us avoid what we fear most.  We determine to trust Him no matter what, even if our worst nightmare befalls us.  Our only steadfast defenses against life's certain uncertainty is unconditional trust in a Savior who loves us more than His own life.  

As part of this study, we were encouraged to fill in the blanks of, "If .............., then.............  Basically, we were supposed to say if my worst fear came true, then this is what would happen, with the prayer and hope that we could get to the place that says, "If my worst fear came true, then I know God will take care of me no matter what."

There is a section in the study where we are encouraged to fill in our worst fear and followed by that are words of truth of God's promises to us.  For me, they would have gone like this if fear hadn't had a grip on me after my dream while pregnant with Ashlyn when I was asking the question of "what if ?"......

"If my baby is born with Down Syndrome, then God will take care of me."
"If my baby is born with Down Syndrome, then God has a plan."
"If my baby is born with Down Syndrome, then God desires to accomplish something monumental in me."
"If my baby is born with Down Syndrome, then God's going to demonstrate His sufficiency to me."

There is freedom in those words.  There is also complete truth in those words after having lived through a "what if" and witnessed all of them being true.  I keep experiencing them being true.  The other huge lesson I learned from my "what if something is wrong with our baby" fear is that what I thought would be a huge nightmare was actually God giving me one of the biggest blessings I have ever known.  Without a doubt, Ashlyn is a blessing, not the tragedy I thought was given to us in the days after her birth.  Sometimes what we perceive to be nightmares are really God giving us blessings we never could have dreamed for ourselves.

I still have fears.  I still have "what if's".  I live in the real world and know that sometimes things happen that truly are tragedies.  I know people who are carrying loads right now that they think will kill them.  And, I know that fear can consume us over the worry of what could happen to the point that we aren't truly living anyway.  Abundant life is gone.....choked by worry.  I have a ways to go in this.  I am praying that I would have unconditional faith.  I am praying that I could truly say, "If my worst fear came true, then God."  Nothing else.  Try it.....whatever causes your mind to go to places of worry and anxiety over how you would make it through your worst fears....tell yourself this:

"If your worst fear came true, then God would take care of you."
"If your worst fear came true, then God has a plan."
"If your worst fear came true, then God desires to accomplish something monumental in you."
"If your worst fear came true, then God's going to demonstrate His sufficiency to you."

Not easy, but freedom.  "What if ?........, then God."  Period.