Tired of Living in Fear? Faith & Bravery When Life is Uncertain

Hey Friend!

Are you tired of living in fear? It’s possible to tap into faith & inner bravery when life gets hard or uncertain.

Listen in to this LIVE of me sharing my heart. This is an open, unfiltered, unedited conversation from The Stefanie Gass Community on Living in Fear during these very uncertain and scary times.

We dive into how to navigate the unknown and release the worldly fears that are keep us paralyzed or anxious.

From homeschool to public school from masks to no masks we discuss it all through a biblical lens.

I pray this blesses you!

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

(00:01)
Hello, welcome to our conversation this morning about all the things. I have been in this really weird space of fear of panic, of what to do with my kiddo, right versus wrong. Just all of it, all of it, like it’s just a mess, right? The world that we’re currently sitting in is so confusing. It’s scary.

(00:39)
You guys, the reason it’s scary is because we just don’t what we don’t know. We have no idea what the future holds. We have no idea if we’re gonna be dealing with this pandemic for two more months, or if we’re gonna be dealing with this for two more years, we don’t know. That is where the spirit of fear comes in, in the unknown. And I want y’all to know, like, if you’ve been sitting in a spirit of fear and panic, you’re not alone.

(01:09)
You are not alone. I have been there with you guys. Absolutely. But I wanted to talk to you guys this morning a little bit about some of the things that have been weighing heavy for me, some great advice that I got today, and then hopefully that can help you wherever you guys are sitting in this space. So I’m gonna start with our kids.

(01:28)
How many of you have kids? Let’s have some fun this mornin, okay. We need to have fun because every thing else is crazy in the world. So let’s just have some fun in our little corner of the internet this morning. Get crazy with me.

(01:52)
So I’m gonna start with about a couple months ago, I started totally freaking out about this whole school situation. So I’ve got a six and a half year old who’s going into first grade. I was called to public school where we live a couple years ago, I felt very strongly that God asked us to do public school for my son. And so that’s what we did.

(02:16)
Then this stuff all happened. It got crazy. We had a crazy end of the 2019 school year. And, it was wild and chaos, just chaos, honestly. So I’m like, okay, that can’t happen, again, my kids totally need to go back to school because they learn best in that setting. They do best in that setting.

(02:53)
So I started looking into all the options of getting them into some other school, right. A private school, something like that. I went and did so many tours of private schools, you guys, and then I’m like, I’m not gonna pay nine grand a year for me to end up homeschooling or distance learning. That’s just not where I’m at. And also, I don’t know. I just feel like we were called to public school for a reason, initially.

(03:20)
My point of that whole spiel is that I was making decisions based on emotion and panicking. Right? And how many of you have been there? So how many of you are feeling panicked about school? So I started and I went and did all the things.

(04:08)
Then I’m having conversations with my friends about homeschooling and all the things. And then I was like, you know what? I need to ask a couple of my friends to guide me, to give me some grace-fueled advice, some biblical advice about what I should do. And so all the while I am myself praying, but I’m not really feeling any direct divine intervention as far as what we should do with our kiddos in the fall.

(04:33)
Finally this morning, I got some amazing advice that I just wanted to share with you guys. Shout out to my friend, Jessika Brown, who told me, “Stephanie, you know God’s got this and we can handle this. And no matter what happens, you’re an involved parent. You’re an involved mom. And what is the number one indication of kids being successful? It’s involve parents, you guys.

(05:04)
So for those of you mamas that are like me, and you’re just overthinking everything like I can’t send them to school because they’re gonna have to wear a mask. And I’m catastrophizing, right? I was like, they’re gonna slam the desks with their rulers and be like six feet apart. And I’m I’m sending my kids to prison, I’m a horrible mom. .

(05:23)
Then the other half of me is going, but you know that’s how he learns best. He needs socialization, he misses his friends, you were called to public school in the first place, all of these things. It was just like this torn feeling that I had. She said I have decided to have radical acceptance of the things I just cannot change right now. And to be willing to go with the flow and know that kids are resilient and they are going to do great, no matter what we choose.

(05:55)
I thought that was so beautiful. And then my other friend, Ashley Procter, who reminded me like, Hey, if you choose to go back to school, know that that’s okay and know that you don’t deserve to be judged for that. That’s totally your choice. And if you decide to homeschool, that is totally your choice.

(06:14)
It’s a choice that’s fully between you and God and your family, which I thought was so important to bring up to you guys because whatever your choice is, is your choice. I wanna remind you not to get influenced and not to be influenced by maybe someone that’s already made up their mind. And they think that that’s the only right way.

(06:35)
Because the truth is there’s no one right way right now for anything, right. There’s no right way for us to deal with this. And there’s really no right answer either because we don’t know what the future holds. We don’t know what we don’t know. Right? I thought that that advice was so beautiful and so necessary just for me, if any of you need to hear that. It really gave me peace in knowing I’m not a bad mom.

(07:09)
If I choose to send my kiddo back and he goes every other week and has to wear a mask, that’s just the reality of it. If it doesn’t work, I can pull him out of homeschool. And so, for me, I feel a lot of peace surrounding that decision. I know that some of my other friends feel really strongly that they’re gonna homeschool, and I want them to have that peace knowing that’s okay.

(07:31)
So if anybody needed to hear any of those things, bringing it back to God and letting God help guide you right now is all we can do some scripture. I wanted to read to you guys. Some scripture I wanted to read to you guys “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. That’s Psalms 56:3, Isaiah 41:10, “Do not fear for I am with you. Do not be dismayed. I am your God, I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

(08:04)
So I feel like whatever God is leading you guys to do in this situation, in this moment with your kids, with yourselves, trust him, stop trusting the media because we all know the media’s fake news anyway. They don’t share any of the beautiful things that are happening right now. People coming together, beautiful, beautiful scenes of complete worship and surrender that are happening in the world.

(08:28)
I just shared on my Instagram, the other day, there were 7,000 people that came together in worship. I can’t remember the city, but it’s in my stories. Not anywhere on the news was that shared. What’s shared on the news is fake and infotainment, right? It’s not even real. So you guys stop believing and myself included, believing everything that’s on the news start really, truly discerning what’s actually happening for you in your life and leaning on God.

(08:55)
I think this is important as well, because I’ve been sitting in a place of fear about the world going into the world. I hide at home and don’t wanna go anywhere, and I personally don’t really wanna wear a mask. So I’m like, I just won’t go anywhere. That’s fine with me. I just can’t really breathe. Not to be political at all. I just don’t really like it. And if I don’t have to go anywhere, then I won’t, but I need to be radically flexible right now.

(09:30)
If I create this spirit of negativity for my kids around going into the world around, hey, sometimes we wear masks and it’s gonna be fine. Then I’m projecting onto them, right? I’m projecting fear and hate and divisiveness. And I’ve been looking at this from a negative lens. So I need to reframe that. I need to say, hey, this is where we’re at. This is where we’re at right now.

(09:54)
How can I look at this? A lens of love, through a lens of flexibility, through a lens of it’s okay to be uncomfortable for a little bit. We’re still gonna love people the same way that we wanna be loved. And just because this is not something that I would choose, it doesn’t mean that it has to be something that I hate.

(10:14)
It doesn’t mean it has to be something of that causes divisiveness for me, my kids, my family, my friends. So how can we look at our perspective and the things we don’t agree with through a lens of acceptance? And I’m not saying you have to agree with what’s happening. I’m not saying you have to agree with wearing masks or not wearing masks. It’s bigger than that, right? It’s bigger than wearing a piece of cloth over your face.

(10:43)
It’s being willing to still love each other, even though. Therefore, it’s being willing to all just agree to disagree on certain things that actually need to be political, they don’t need to be divisive. And we can say just how can we grow together right now? How can we learn from this? How can we get better together?

(11:04)
We can either allow the enemy to use this, to use the coronavirus, to use the fear of going back to school, to use the political stances of masks versus no masks to tear us apart as Christians and as faith-fueled human beings here, or we can make a stand against that. We can let the news get into our minds and our psyches and drive a spirit of fear, or we can choose to not be that weak, to not be that person, and we can choose to let God lead us in love.

(11:49)
It’s really up to you because things of this world are not really for us, right? The news and the fake and the hate and the hurt and the divisiveness. Those are all tools that the enemy is using to break us down, to tear us apart right now. So, we can choose to either lean into that and panic and believe me, I’m guilty. You guys, I can’t believe I’m telling you this, I bought 60 days worth of freeze dried fruit off Amazon, because I’m like, it’s the apocalypse. We’re all gonna die. It’s fine.

(12:26)
I’m totally gonna buy the freeze dried food because it lasts for 25 years and we need to stock up on our ammo and I told totally freaked out because some of the things in revelations are maybe happening. We don’t really know. And then I realized, okay, chill out girl. Right? Because in Psalms 94:19, it says “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.”

(12:53)
I was letting the world drive my fears. And that is the enemy’s favorite thing to see, especially from us, right? This community of incredibly powerful, strong kingdom soldiers. That’s what we are. That’s what you are. And he loves it when we get into a spirit of fear, because that’s when he breaks us down. Not for me, not today, Satan, not today. Right? Are you guys with me?

(13:24)
If you are feeling me on this, then we have to make a focused, intentional choice to stop leaning into fear and to start leaning into faith, to start being the difference makers, to start looking at all of this through a lens of love, to start reacting. I wanna be better and I wanna love everyone. Oh my gosh, you guys, you wouldn’t believe the political crap I deal with from two totally different sides from my family.

(13:53)
I’m like, look, you’re just a human and I love you, and you’re a child of God. Because of that, I’m called to love you fiercely, right? The greatest command of all time is to love God and then love others. Just love others as if they were ourselves, and so that’s all we can do. We can let the little nuances of, I don’t know and what if, and school versus no school and all that stuff break us or we can let it build us because this will not kill us.

(14:22)
This will only make us stronger, and so we will survive, and we will thrive on the other side of this. Right? We can choose to just live in his grace and his strength. Pray, pray hard. Know I’m here with you guys and I’m just gonna leave you with this verse. Okay? Joshua 1:19. “Have I not commanded you be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified. Do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

(14:57)
What does that mean to me? I can’t go wrong. I can’t go wrong. He’s here. He’s got this. Love you guys. I hope this was helpful. Just felt called to share with you this morning. Love y’all and I’ll see you later.