No.9: Things That Scare Me Most

racism and rodents and raisins, oh my

Had to pull up the old jazzercise family photo for this one. Let’s buckle up.

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The right thing to say as a woman saved by grace through grace and rescued from the depths of my sin by a Savior is that I’m no longer crippled by fear.

That’d be the right thing.

Not the true thing.

Truth is, fear is still a familiar friend of mine. The kind of friend that holds you hostage and brings out the worst in you and tricks you into thinking you can never change. Yes, fear visits me often.

It‘a when the dryer balls start going wild in the middle of a nighttime tumble-dry, the moment they close the door on the plane, when I get an email saying the tummy bug is going around class, when I become numb to sin I’ve subconsciously justified, that one scene in beauty and the beast, mistaking a raisin for a chocolate chip, and raising Black children that will grow up to be Black adults in a city, state, country and world that loves Black culture far more than Black people. I’m terrified of any animal that can fit in a hole half the size of its body, the days leading up to bloodwork results, being rejected by people who don’t know me at all and being misunderstood by the people who know me best.