Tuesday’s Column: Dale Mail

“I’m afraid there’s no denyin’
I’m just a dandy-lion
A fate I don’t deserve
I’m sure I could show my prowess
Be a lion, not a mouse
If I only had the nerve”

– Cowardly Lion

I shiver when I think back to the times that me and my younger brother would collect spiders from the backyard and put them all in a container. Sometimes we would take it up to our bedroom! At night we would put a flashlight behind the clear cage and watch all the spiders make their webs— occasionally fight each other.

 I don’t believe mom ever discovered this little secret. Despite the many creepy gladiator wars that my brother and I hosted, for some reason as I grew older (more mature) I developed a fear of spiders. 

Fears can be funny like that. They can come from bad experiences or just somewhere in the back of our minds. There’s a lot of fear in the world today! One of my favorite psalms in the Bible is Psalm 46. We read about what seems to be those worst case scenarios, but God still reigns over all. What if the earth gives way? What if the mountains are thrown into the sea? What if the wrong man becomes our new president? What if this virus never goes away? Even so, we have no reason to fear. God is bigger than our fears. We serve a Being with that much power and it should fill us with courage. What are you afraid of?