What to do with our fears?

Good afternoon,
            Times are when I sit down to write a few thoughts and not a lot comes springing to mind. So I turn to people who inspire me, hoping their words help you as well. Here are words from a spiritual director named, Joyce Rupp. Another example of Heather sending something to me that will now help you:
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Fear in itself is humanity’s friend, a natural response meant to protect our well-being. But when fear insists on center stage and gobbles up peacefulness, it can change into an enemy. Pema Chodron writes in Comfortable with Uncertainty that instead of “resisting our fears” we need to “get to know them well” and ask ourselves, “What happens when I feel I can’t handle what’s going on? …Where do I look for strength and in what do I place my trust?” That last question is a determining factor as to the choice of maintaining foundational peace or succumbing to high anxiety when fear arises due to an uncertain, glum future. 
 
Tara Brach (Radical Compassion) describes what I consider to be a valuable meditation in regard to where we place our trust:  
“Let the fears you’re carrying, the big ones, come to mind. And now imagine that you are holding them gently and respectfully in both hands…and placing them into the arms of the Divine Mother. It’s not that you’re getting rid of them. It’s more like letting something much larger help you hold them. See if you can visualize and feel this. You might try actually cupping your hands and lifting them up.”  
 
I also return daily to several lines in Psalm 91, inviting the words to sink into my heart: “My refuge and my strength, In You alone will I trust. For You deliver me from the webs of fear, from all that separates and divides.”  (Psalms for Praying)
 
God bless you everyone – and look for the Palm Sunday service, Shaun is doing his final editing… the service will be available to you by tomorrow morning. Look for email or go to FPCE website (www.fpcedgewood.org) or the First Presbyterian Church page on facebook or Instagram.
Pastor Michael