girltalk Blog
2010 at 2:36 pm | by Carolyn Mahaney
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear Motherhood
Faith toward God is the foundation of effective mothering. Success as a mother doesn’t begin with hard work or sound principles or consistent discipline (although those are all vital components!). It begins with God: His character, His faithfulness, His promises, His sovereignty. And as our understanding of these truths increases, so will our faith for mothering. But if our practices (no matter how useful) aren’t motivated by faith, they will be fruitless.
The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). Fear is sin. And as my husband has often graciously reminded me – God is not sympathetic to my unbelief. Why? Because fear, worry, and unbelief say to God that we don’t really believe He is ‘merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’ (Psalm 86:15). We are calling God a liar.
Even in the most trying situations with our children, we have much more incentive to trust than to fear, much more cause for peace and joy than despair. That’s because, as Christians, we have the hope of the gospel.
To be continued…
(reprinted from Girl Talk: Mother-Daughter Conversations on Biblical Womanhood)
2010 at 12:40 pm | by Carolyn Mahaney
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear Motherhood
A woman came up to me at a party last week, and after we chatted for a minute, she said: “My friend told me about something she heard you say once, and I wondered if it was true.”
I knew where she was going. I get this question with curious regularity.
“Did you say that your biggest regret as a mother was that you didn’t trust God more?”
Yes, I told her, it’s true. I wish I had trusted God more.
As I wrote in our book Girl Talk:
“For every fearful peek into the future, I wish I had looked to Christ instead. For each imaginary trouble conjured up, I wish I had recalled the specific, unfailing faithfulness of God. In place of dismay and dread, I wish I had exhibited hope and joy. I wish I had approached mothering like the preacher Charles Spurgeon approached his job: ‘forecasting victory, not foreboding defeat.”
What mothering fears have you battled lately? Whether you are pregnant with your first child or trying to steer your youngest child through the teenage years, temptations to fear (or to its opposite: self reliance) litter the mothering landscape.
Here at girltalk we’re beginning a new series: A Mother’s Trust. To be honest, we’re doing this for ourselves as much as for you. But we hope it serves you to listen in as we preach God’s truth to our souls.
2010 at 2:05 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear
Anyone out there afraid for your kids? I thought I saw a few hands go up. Mine sure did.
These fears come in all shapes, sizes and packages. I don’t need to suggest any for you. You know what your fears for your children are. You were probably thinking of them just this morning.
In his book Running Scared
(which I highly recommend), Ed Welch gives us the biblical solution to our fears: we need to fear more. We need to fear God more. For “when you fear the Lord, there is not much else to fear.” The fear of the Lord banishes our fears for our children. Dr. Welch illustrates:
“If you are trained in medicine and have parented five children, you aren’t going to worry when your neighbor asks you to watch her ten-year-old for twenty minutes. If you really want to fight fear, learn to fear Someone who captures your attention in such a way that your other fears suddenly seem pedestrian and unimportant.”
But there’s more. When we learn to fear God, we will actually be protecting our children. Proverbs 14:26 says, “He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge.”
So if you want to be rid of those nagging fears and be a means of God’s protection for your children, fear the Lord today. Allow His wisdom, goodness, love, power and holiness to capture your attention. Then tell your kids about the awesome God we serve.
—from the archives
2010 at 2:24 pm | by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear
“Facing our fears” is the topic of this week’s Womanly Dominion book club. In this recession, perhaps some of you are tempted to fear and anxiety about money; maybe you are up against major life changes or an uncertain financial future. Maybe you don’t know where to turn.
As one reader commented “It’s strange how finances are such a taboo topic. When someone struggles with an illness or physical difficulty, we are open and are able to talk as a community about what the Lord is doing through it, but finances are different.”
Our Lord doesn’t hesitate to address our fears about money: “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.” (Matt. 6:25). Instead of worrying about money we should trust our Heavenly Father.
“Do you trust the King who is also your Father?” Scripture puts this question to us, says author Ed Welch:
“Our Answer? ‘Sort of….a little….usually.’ We sort of want…to trust the King—until life gets precarious. When everything is going well and the storehouses are full, we trust him. But when there is nothing for
tomorrow, we panic and track down the address of another god who can give us enough for tomorrow and the next day too….Our trust is divided. We don’t put all our eggs in one basket—even God’s—because that’s too risky.”
No matter our fears about finances—or anything else—let’s turn away from false gods and “put all our eggs in God’s basket.” As Mark Chanski reminds us, He is worthy of our trust.
“Should I need to endure my worst nightmare, He’ll be there, to uphold me so I don’t collapse or breakdown in despair. As Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego found a sustaining and supporting Helper in their fiery ordeal (Daniel 3:25), so will I not be left to walk alone either. Therefore, we will not fear”! This enables me to eye yonder furnace with a holy calm, to say as I draw potentially near to it, “It is well with my soul.”
—from the archives
2009 at 9:54 am | by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear
“Facing our fears” is the topic of this week’s Womanly Dominion book club. In this recession, perhaps some of you are tempted to fear and anxiety about money; like Kathy, you are up against major life changes or an uncertain financial future.
Maybe you don’t know where to turn. As one reader commented “It’s strange how finances are such a taboo topic. When someone struggles with an illness or physical difficulty, we are open and are able to talk as a community about what the Lord is doing through it, but finances are different.”
Our Lord doesn’t hesitate to address our fears about money: “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.” (Matt. 6:25). Instead of worrying about money we should trust our Heavenly Father.
“Do you trust the King who is also your Father?” Scripture puts this question to us, says author Ed Welch:
“Our Answer? ‘Sort of….a little….usually.’ We sort of want…to trust the King—until life gets precarious. When everything is going well and the storehouses are full, we trust him. But when there is nothing for tomorrow, we panic and track down the address of another god who can give us enough for tomorrow and the next day too….Our trust is divided. We don’t put all our eggs in one basket—even God’s—because that’s too risky.”
No matter our fears about finances—or anything else—let’s turn away from false gods and “put all our eggs in God’s basket.” As Mark Chanski reminds us, He is worthy of our trust.
“Should I need to endure my worst nightmare, He’ll be there, to uphold me so I don’t collapse or breakdown in despair. As Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego found a sustaining and supporting Helper in their fiery ordeal (Daniel 3:25), so will I not be left to walk alone either. Therefore, we will not fear”! This enables me to eye yonder furnace with a holy calm, to say as I draw potentially near to it, “It is well with my soul.”
2008 at 4:07 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear
Ever wonder if you would hold up under religious persecution? How would you respond if given the choice to deny Christ or face a grisly death?
These questions occasionally haunt me. I read stories of heroes in Scripture or history who kept the faith and I wonder if I could do the same. I believe I am a Christian and I hope I would display unflinching faith in suffering, but what if I don’t?
This morning Ian Duguid helped me do away with these anxious wonderings. He was commenting on the well-known story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace:
“God has not promised to give us the grace to face all of the desperate situations that we might imagine finding ourselves in. He has promised to sustain us only in the ones that he actually brings us into. He therefore doesn’t promise that we will be able to imagine how we could go through the fire for his sake, but he does promise that if he leads us through the fire, he will give us sufficient grace at that time. Like manna, grace is not something that can be stored up for later use: each day receives its own supply” (Iain Duguid, Daniel, p. 53).
That’s right, there’s no grace for my imagination. But there’s plenty of grace for whatever God has ordained for me to walk through. My job? Declare Jesus as Lord today and not imagine “a graceless tomorrow.”
2008 at 3:47 pm | by Janelle Bradshaw
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear
Fear can feel so overwhelming and impossible to overcome. Oh, but the Bible brings some wonderful news. The battle is not ours to fight alone. No, there is One who goes before us and He has already won. The power of sin has already been broken.
As Ed Welch writes in Running Scared: “God’s deliverance means he will be with us; we will be able to with stand temptation without giving in to sin; and we will be able to stand firm even when attacked by our fiercest adversary, Satan the Accuser.”
I love 2 Chronicles 20:15: “Thus says the Lord to you, ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great horde, for the battle is not yours but God’s.’” Read this verse again. Allow it to sink into your soul. Whatever fear you are facing today, you aren’t fighting it alone. The same Savior that died for your sin of unbelief, fights this battle with you. He will supply you with the strength you need to conquer.
2008 at 4:47 pm | by Kristin Chesemore
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear
“Sufficient for the day is its own trouble,” it says in Matthew 6:34. Granted, my troubles aren’t very big. Lately it’s been things like the unexpected bill, the disobedience of my four-year-old or snags in the house-buying process. Nothing like the troubles several of my friends have experienced recently.
Because of fear, however, my minor daily troubles can sometimes seem worse than they really are. John Flavel (whom Mom quoted yesterday) explains:
“The grief we suffer from evil felt would be light and easy, were it not incensed by fear….If the face of things to come be threatening and inauspicious, fear gains the ascendant over the mind; and unmanly [or in our case “unwomanly”] and unchristian faintness pervades it; and, among the many other mischiefs it inflicts, this is not the least, that it brings the evil of to-morrow upon to-day, and so makes the duties of to-day wholly unserviceable to the evils of to-morrow.”
My four-year-old’s disobedience is exacerbated by my fear for the state of his soul. The bill seems larger than it really is if I’m worried about our family’s financial future. The snags in the house-buying process appear ominous if I’m anxious over the current housing market.
By fearing the future, I’m bringing in unnecessary and imaginary trouble and piling it onto today’s trouble. No wonder today’s trouble seems worse than it really is! What’s more, by fearing the future, I make today’s duties “wholly unserviceable to the evils of tomorrow.” I can’t effectively prepare for tomorrow’s trouble if I’m not trusting God today.
Matthew 6:25-34 doesn’t simply tell me there will be trouble tomorrow. It also gives me reasons to trust in God. He is sovereign, caring, wise, and loving, and He has promised to provide everything that I need. I can face today’s troubles knowing that His grace will be there for me tomorrow.
2008 at 4:56 pm | by Carolyn Mahaney
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear
I think it is fair to say that women (at least it’s true of the four women that write for girltalk!)
can be prone to fear. And oh what ludicrous thoughts and images we can
conjure up! So preposterous, we’d laugh at ourselves… that is, if we
hadn’t worked ourselves into such a frenzy of fright.
Puritan John Flavel comments on this habit: “The rules of fear are
not like the rules in arithmetic, where many nothings make nothing, but
fear can make something out of nothing, yea, many things, and great
things out of nothing at all.”
Now, I’m no math expert, but I do spend many evenings helping my
teenage son with Algebra homework. I know that if x and y both equal
zero, than the answer is zero. Not so when it comes to the
irrationality of fear.
Take Psalm 53:5 for example, says Flavel: “There they are, in great terror, where there is no terror!”
He writes: “Here was a great fear raised or created out of nothing at
all; had their fear been examined or hunted home to its original, it
would have been found a pure creature of fancy.”
How many of our great fears have been created out of nothing at all? And proved, in the end, to equal nothing at all?
But in Scripture we find something real and rational and comforting.
Here’s Flavel one more time. “In the written word are found all sorts
of refreshing, strengthening and heart-reviving promises prepared by
the wisdom and care of God for our relief”
So let’s find relief with this refreshing, strengthening and heart-reviving promise: “Fear
not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will
strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous
right hand” (Is. 41:10).
2008 at 3:16 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear
As I admitted the other day, I am often tempted to fear for my children. But that’s only the beginning of my fears and anxieties. I’m what Ed Welch, author of Running Scared calls “an advanced worrier.” Unfortunately, worry is the only thing this average girl has ever been advanced in! It’s not something I’m proud of.
If a family member fails to call me back I worry that they’ve been in a car accident. If I hear sirens I think the church might be on fire (we live a block away). If an airplane flies overhead (like they do all day) I’m afraid the terrorists have come back to DC. Yep, I’m certifiable.
“Where worriers show their irrationality” Welch observes (and my husband often reminds me!):
“...is in their success rate: they are always wrong, at least in the specifics. They think the worst about tomorrow and it doesn’t happen. [But] if you worry about everything you will occasionally stumble upon an approximation to a real event. Suddenly you are a gifted prophet and it is your God-given duty to worry. You see the future, others are blind to it. You must sound the alarm for the people you love. Compassion demands that you worry.”
I’m compassionate. That’s what I am! But no, Dr. Welch then exposes me for who I really am—nothing better than a back-room fortune-teller:
“Worriers are certifiable false prophets. Their peer group is not so much those with psychiatric diagnoses as they are astrologers, tarot card readers, and Ouija board devotees. How much better off we would be if all our future predictions were declared illegal and we were forever banned from making any others.”
So, I’m declaring my fears illegal today. I’m putting away my crystal ball and turning in my “advanced worrier” certificate. I wasn’t very good at predicting the future anyways. To be honest, I was terrible. Maybe I’ll try writing fortune cookie inserts for a change. Just kidding!
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11, emphasis mine)
2008 at 3:08 pm | by Carolyn Mahaney
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear
Tell me you can’t relate to this scenario. You talk to a woman who is in the middle of a trial. She testifies to God’s overwhelming and sustaining grace. You marvel at her peace and joy that belies her suffering. But instead of praising God for His evident faithfulness, you begin to imagine yourself enduring her ordeal. How 
would I cope? I don’t think I could handle it. I hope it doesn’t happen to me. With high-definition clarity and color you see yourself in the midst of her ordeal. Grace is nowhere to be found, and you are gripped by
fear and dread.
So often we ignore the awesome displays of God’s faithfulness to people in trials and instead imagine ourselves in their situation, minus the grace of God. We would do well to heed Elisabeth Elliot’s wise reminder that there is no grace for our imaginations. None. It’s simply not available. God is not waiting in the wings to help us through whatever horrible imaginary trouble we can conjure up today. But His goodness is stored up and will be abundantly poured out whenever we walk through a real trial.
I’ve passed along this piece of advice to oodles of women. Maybe that’s because there are so many like me who easily submit to fear. So let’s resolve together: the next time we observe someone going through a trial, let’s turn off our imaginations and instead fix our gaze on the marvelous, abundant, overwhelming and timely grace of God—the same grace that will be available to us when we actually need it.
“…do not fear anything that is frightening.” 1 Peter 3:6
2008 at 3:59 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear
Anyone out there afraid for your kids? I thought I saw a few hands go up. Mine sure did.
These fears come in all shapes, sizes and packages. I don’t need to suggest any for you. You know what your fears for your children are. You were probably thinking of them just this morning.
In his book Running Scared (which I highly recommend), Ed Welch gives us the biblical solution to our fears: we need to fear more. We need to fear God more. For “when you fear the Lord, there is not much else to fear.” The fear of the Lord banishes our fears for our children. Dr. Welch illustrates:
“If you are trained in medicine and have parented five children, you aren’t going to worry when your neighbor asks you to watch her ten-year-old for twenty minutes. If you really want to fight fear, learn to fear Someone who captures your attention in such a way that your other fears suddenly seem pedestrian and unimportant.”
But there’s more. When we learn to fear God, we will actually be protecting our children. Proverbs 14:26 says, “He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge.”
So if you want to be rid of those nagging fears and be a means of God’s protection for your children, fear the Lord today. Allow His wisdom, goodness, love, power and holiness to capture your attention. Then tell your kids about the awesome God we serve.
2005 at 6:13 pm | by Kristin Chesemore
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear Motherhood Young Children
I was lying awake on the couch the other night, listening to my one-year-old Owen’s raspy respirations. He had a bad cold and I was little anxious about how much trouble he was having breathing. Then, having a few moments to think in between Owie’s labored breaths, my mind cast back to the last five years of motherhood and how often I have been anxious about my children.
There was my concerned call to the doctor about Andrew because I didn’t know that periodic breathing was normal for a newborn. Then there were Andrew’s febrile seizures in the middle of the night which were way-scary. I was relieved to hear that he would soon outgrow them. Then came the two miscarriages which led to constant wondering throughout the next two healthy pregnancies.
When an ultrasound discovered a spot on Liam’s heart while I was still carrying him, the midwife could tell I was very anxious. “You can do more harm to your baby by worrying than any spot,” she told me. It turned out to be nothing but a calcium deposit.
Now there is Liam’s speech, which still isn’t as far along as other two-year-olds. And the fearful thoughts crowd in again: “What if he has a learning disability? What will his life be like if he does?”
So much anxiety in these few short years! Then I thought of the writer who said: “There is nothing easy about good mothering. It can be back breaking, heart wrenching and anxiety producing. And that’s just the morning.”
However, that quote is not entirely accurate. Yes, good mothering is hard! But it hasn’t produced anxiety in me. Rather, it has revealed the anxiety that was already there in my heart. Mothering has revealed my sin of unbelief in God, in who He is and what He’s promised to do. So often I have sought relief from my fears in a doctor’s reassurance that “everything is going to be OK.” Too many times I’ve run to the pediatrician instead of running to God.
But because of the grace of God that has broken through my hard heart, I can…I must now choose to repent and trust God with my children. For He is their Loving Creator. He knit them together in my womb and He planned all their days (Psalm 139:13-16). And if he has allowed them to have seizures or learning disabilities, or even a cold, that is all part of His perfect plan for them.
That’s what’s wonderful about Liam’s slow-developing speech. I can’t run to the doctor and get a “for certain” answer this time. I simply have to wait and trust God for my son. I must believe that God’s plans are for Liam’s good, to give him a future and a hope (Jer. 29:11). All is under God’s sovereign hand. And in this truth is rest for a mother’s heart, and eventually for me that night…sleep.
2005 at 1:29 pm | by Nicole Whitacre
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear
I don’t like to fly.
This wasn’t always the case. My dad’s ministry responsibilities took our family many places over the years, so I am a veteran airline passenger. And I used to love it—the excitement and adventure of it all.
But that changed in the summer of 1999 on a family trip to Orlando, FL.
We were nearing the end of an uneventful flight when Dad noticed we had been circling for some time. Shortly thereafter, the pilot announced that we had experienced “hydraulic failure” and would have to make an emergency landing. We were circling the airport to use up the maximum amount of fuel before the descent.
The oh-so-helpful man sitting beside Janelle and me told us that hydraulic failure meant the brakes had failed. The flight attendants’ anxious manner wasn’t any more comforting.
As the plane began its descent, we were instructed to place our hands on the seat in front of us and lean our head on our hands. Upon our approach the flight attendant began yelling into the intercom system, over and over again: “Brace. Brace. Head down. Stay down. Brace. Brace. Head down. Stay down.”
In the end, the landing felt no different than any other (except for the yelling flight attendant). We never found out what “hydraulic failure” meant, but the only result was that our plane had no power to taxi to the gate. We had to be towed.
So now you understand why I wasn’t exactly excited about flying to Denver earlier this week to attend the International Christian Retail Show with my parents and Steve. Unfortunately, you can’t drive from Virginia to Colorado for a two-day trip.
God was giving me an opportunity to trust Him.
My wonderful husband Steve helped prepare me with a verse to meditate on from Matthew 10:29-31:
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
As we landed in Denver, and then in Baltimore again last night, I repeated to myself (in place of the “brace brace” mantra): “He sees the sparrows. He sees the sparrows. He sees the sparrows.”
This specific promise for my specific fear (see Mom’s post “Fighting Fear”) reminded me that nothing has changed, except my feelings about flying. Airlines aren’t less safe than they were before 1999. But more importantly, God hasn’t changed. He is still faithful, and sovereign, and good. And He still holds my life in His hands, whether I’m in the air, on the ground, or asleep in my bed at night.
God hasn’t promised that I won’t die in an airplane someday. But He says that I am of more value than many sparrows, and that the hairs of my head are numbered. He has told me not to fear.
So I am actually looking forward to flying again. It will be another opportunity to declare my trust in my Heavenly Father: the Unchanging One.
2005 at 3:13 pm | by Carolyn Mahaney
Filed under
Biblical Womanhood Fear
The phone rang early this morning. It was my daughter informing me that there had been multiple explosions in London’s transport system today. I immediately experienced fear. My husband is in England. He is speaking at a leaders’ conference in Brighton.
My first thoughts were: How close is Brighton to London? Did CJ have plans to go to London today? Maybe the reason I haven’t heard from him is because something is wrong! I tried calling him, but got no answer.
Then I remembered Psalm 37:23—one of today’s take-away verses for meditation from my morning devotions. It reads: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.” I had also read Charles Spurgeon’s commentary on this verse, which said: “All [of the Christian’s] course of life is graciously ordained, and in lovingkindness all is fixed. No fickle chance rules us; every step is the subject of divine decree.”
I may not have been able to talk to C.J, but this much I knew: God’s lovingkindness was ordering his steps. How kind of God to give me that promise this morning! It brought instant comfort to my soul.
And C.J. did call. He is safe. I am grateful to God for his loving protection.
However, he said that our friends in the United Kingdom are in need of our prayers. Please pray for safety and peace for all, and for wisdom for the local church pastors, particularly in London. And please join me in asking God to use this tragedy for His glory, the good of His people, and the spread of the gospel.
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