fear

The night was a weekday. I had been in Zambia just a few short weeks since landing at the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport with a one-way ticket stub from America in hand in July 2012.

A dusty sunset spread across the sky, visible through the barred windows in the little cottage I was renting in Lusaka. I settled into my weeknight routine, making dinner from scratch, chopping local vegetables and stewing them over rice. I popped a DVD into my laptop and snuggled into the soft corduroy couch in the furnished accommodation. Not yet quite accustomed to the Zambia way of life, I didn’t have the routine down of charging my computer every time I used it in case power went out at any time. As the movie concluded, so did the battery life on my laptop, a light source and boredom cure. The only electronic device that remained with a few hours of battery life was my phone. As the dusk gave way to pitch black darkness, I flipped the switches on in each room, always having been a bit (very) cautious and nervous in the dark, especially when alone. Not minutes later, the power went out. A local power cut to conserve the country’s energy reserve. Or something like that.

Pitch darkness. I hurried through the main room, collecting my phone to use as a flashlight and gathering up all of the matches and candles I could find. After making sure I was padlocked inside with the metal bar over my front door, and that door locked, I locked myself in the bedroom. I lit the candles whose light was still dim in the darkness. I lay there wide-eyed, yet tired from the day’s activities. Should I go to bed? It’s only 8pm, a time that would be laughable to go to sleep if I was in the States.

An hour passed, and somehow I kept myself busy on my phone thanks to the freshly-purchased internet bundle. Snuggling deeper into bed and ready to call it a night, I startled awake when I hear an unmistakable sound.

Bang. Bang bang bang. Brakes? Too clear. Too sharp.

Gunshots. And they continued.

The bedroom I locked myself into backed up to a tall concrete block wall separating that property from the neighbors. I could hear that the noise was close, either over this wall in front of me, or over one of the properties adjacent to that.

Thieves were coming. They could tell the power was out because every house was dark, thus the electric fences down and people vulnerable to being robbed.

For someone already afraid of the dark, I became terrified. I could hear the shots getting closer and closer. Dogs barking. Bang bang bang. More dogs. Echoes nearing the wall just feet from my window. A window with bars, yes, but in a room with nowhere to hide should the shots want to enter my room. The entire house was like that, full of windows that gave to gorgeous natural light by day, but now gave way to a danger that there was no where to hide to be out of the path of bullets.

Was this really happening?

What should I do?

I lay paralyzed. Realizing there is not one single thing I can do.

Either they will come and they will shoot as I try to hide behind some furniture or something, or they will not come. My panic was not going to prevent their coming.

In that darkness, for what felt like hours but was surely a few minutes, I lay completely still. Heavy, labored breathing. Rapid heartbeat. And tears streaming down my face.

I wish I could say I felt the perfect peace right then, but instead I felt overwhelmed by terrible darkness. The darkness of night, the darkness of fear, the darkness of a spiritual force that was in my room that night. It was like I could tangibly feel darkness and it inhabited my dwelling place.

All I could do was pray “Jesus.” I repeated over and over again “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” as tears continued streaming and I remained curled up in the fetal position.

Some time in there, the shots ceased before they reached my window and I fell asleep by the grace of the Jesus I was clinging to. Darkness gave way to glorious light in the morning, as the 5am rays permeated my window and gave the most brilliant warmth in the previously cold and dark and terrifying room.

The day was new. The threat over. But not really. There would be a night to every day. This event could happen again and again. With possibly worse outcomes. And by day, I wasn’t exempt from danger. I was in a foreign country all by myself with blond hair and light skin, unable to fit in no matter how badly I wished I could. The shots signified that someone knew I was near, a reality I was warned about as word travels fast about the newcomers.

The naivety quickly faded. Reality set in. Yet I had a task to do and couldn’t lay paralyzed in bed all day. I quickly got ready for the day, grabbed my bag, and unlocked my padlocks to leave the house. I re-locked my padlocks, unlocked the iron gate padlock, and exited through the small door in the iron gate. And I was on my way, walking on the very road that the thief walked just hours before as he went shooting around different houses.

I walked up the road I walked many days previously, yet it felt so different. I felt so… exposed. So vulnerable. I felt like all eyes were on me, the tall white girl who was walking by herself in her long skirt with her giant bag.

A few strides up the road, I stopped completely. I just stood on the side of the road next to the trash-filled gutter and looked around. Looked to my sides, looked behind me, suddenly aware of every single movement and reaction of others’ around me. Were they walking too close? Were they looking at me too long? Was I in danger?

I realized in that moment that I had a choice: I could walk in fear every single day. I could stay paralyzed by the darkness. But that wouldn’t change the situation. Someone could still rob me, and my fear wasn’t protecting me from danger but rather ridding me of joy and life.

Or I could choose to acknowledge the danger, be wise, and trust in the Jesus who met me in that scary dark room the night before. I could feel Him walking beside me. You can call me crazy if you want, but I did. I could feel His spirit protecting me, guiding me, comforting me as I resumed my steps up the big hill to begin my walk to the Ng’ombe Compound.

The dependence on Jesus was an obvious choice in that situation. I was so desperate that I didn’t have any other choice. I surely didn’t want to live in the fear that gripped me the night before. So I just had to trust that Jesus was with me. That His comfort was enough in any situation, good or bad.

(The story concluded with me moving out of the house just days later to move in with several other expats (foreigners) in a more secure neighborhood. No shame in not being “brave enough” to live alone. Plus, they had a pet tortoise, which was a major selling point.)

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Fast forward to 3 and a half years later. I’m in a coffee shop in suburbia, everyone around me sipping their frappuccinos in their sweatshirts, light wash denim, and sneakers. I’ve lived here almost 6 months now after moving back from Zambia.

And when people ask how life is now, I tell them that the transition has been really hard. Maybe that’s not what they want to know, but that’s the story I want to share so I do. Because it has been hard.

But what I really want to say is that I’ve been “dealing with” anxiety for the past year. And that’s been really hard. My anxiety that I equated to a lack of faith turned out to be a real life chemical imbalance from prolonged stress and exposure to traumatic situations.  I got on some medications that have helped me walk through daily life with less emotional and physical pain. And I’m not ashamed of it.

I have anxiety, and while I hope to reach a place where it is no longer part of my everyday life, I also realize that right now it is part of my everyday life, and it may be for a long time. I have come to the reality that I have anxiety, but that my life isn’t defined by my anxiety. It’s just another twist in the plot of life.

And it’s much like the gunshots that one night.

At first, I lay in bed paralyzed by the darkness I felt. I had to be on tranquilizers daily, sometimes multiple times a day just to deal with the effects of anxiety on my body and mind. I wanted to detach and wanted to run. I could sense the imminent danger of this condition’s presence in my life, yet I had no idea how to cope, how to survive the threat upon me.

So I lay in the fetal position crying out “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” I felt the warm tears soak my cheeks, the feeling of helplessness leaving my body with emotions stronger than I’ve felt before. And while I was not removed from the pain, and still continue to walk in the pain on some days, I am comforted.

Because in this season too, I have a choice. Live in the fear of the condition, thinking terrible what-ifs regarding my future with anxiety. Or choose to walk outside that door of the iron gate, and up the hill, with all eyes on me and unable to blend in, feeling the presence of the danger and darkness at times, but choosing the light instead. Choosing Jesus. Choosing to call on Him to walk beside me. Choosing to find my identity in Him over my medications or my diagnosis or my symptoms or my good days vs. bad days.

Some days the decision feels more blurred. Instead of the black-and-white decision faced on that road in Lusaka, I find other options that shouldn’t really be options at all. Like running to daytime television and HULU binges. Or thinking that working so much that I don’t have to pay attention to the issue at hand is a viable, healthy solution. I don’t see it as plain as it is with other comforts that present themselves to muddy the waters. In reality, there are just 2 options: live in fear or live in freedom. To live in HULU and run to my work is also to live in fear, but is somehow a bit more socially acceptable than to lay in my bed terrified for days on end.

That freedom available to me in the midst of danger a couple years back is still available to me. Jesus is still near, He is still victorious, and His invitation still stands to seek refuge in Him, the only true refuge for my soul. Though there are more deceitful yet tempting offerings of “freedom” in this first-world, He is still the only one, a conclusion I confess that I come to out of trial-and-error sometimes.

Though comforts beckon my heart and seem to shout louder for my attention, I am drawn back to the freedom I’ve clung to all along this journey, especially through a chaotic and sometimes dangerous life in Zambia. The realest danger now is that my heart would become convinced that these comforts bring freedom. The realest danger now is found in a battle not so obvious, a battle to pull me away from the one place my soul finds freedom, acceptance, worth, purpose, rest.

But the invitation to freedom is ever still, and ever will be. His grace so sufficient for me. His power made perfect in my weakness. And He’s still walking up that hill with me.