Faith over Fear…Defining and Utilizing Faith in the Everyday

As a Christian, I’m taught to choose faith over fear. Sometimes, faith isn’t what we believe it to be. As someone who lives with a disability, there’s a lot of fear that tends to try and creep into my life. Fear that my disability will get worse. A worry that I’ll end up alone. The voice that tells me that I’m too held back by those things to really make the calling that I believe God has on my life stick.

I’ve been feeling a lot of these. I’m a currently unpublished author, in the weeds of editing my first novel in a series. I also live with Cerebral Palsy. Most days, that means dealing with aches, pains and worry.

My journey landed on a big step a few weeks ago, as I started getting serious about editing my books and doing the work to become what is colloquially known as an “authorpreneur”,

First steps: A leap of faith

That started with getting my company, The Warrior’s Quill, LLC, up and running. I’m trying to form a prayer team. ( I admit I should have done that at the start of this journey). You may also notice that I’ve purchased my own domain name. I moved the website off of WordPress to its own domain. These were huge things holding me back while I was content playing with my novels until I felt they were perfect.

In the meantime, I was struggling. I didn’t want to write, I was ready to give up. And then I talked to the guy who runs and teaches the writing program that led me to all this, Brad Pauquette, who changed my thinking in one sentence. He said:

“I get the sense that someone is making this harder for you than it needs to be.”

I considered that for a long while. He was right. Everything felt like two steps forward, three steps back. But I couldn’t figure it out — who was making this more difficult than it needed to be for me? I ruminated over this for a while, and then finally around the end of last month, in a moment of frustration, I looked at my mom, huffed a sigh and told her in tears that I didn’t think I could do it anymore.

We prayed about it, and we were already staying up late, so there and then, we looked up the guidelines for starting an LLC in my state on my iPad. That night (or rather early morning), I began the process with my mom at my side. And then came the questions:

The Hard Questions

“You realize, doing this is going to eventually affect your disability payments?”
“Are you sure you’re ready to get serious?”
“We’re going to have to go to the bank and get you a business account, right?”
“You know, you’re going to have to learn to do taxes.”

“That’s what scares me.”
“Yeah. I have to do this.”
“You can help me research banks, right?”
“Can you give me a crash refresher course, Dad?” So, it began. We went through all the forms. Paid the fees. Turned out, the someone Brad mentioned was me. And soon, I started getting mail. Mail, my father quickly informed me, were scams from people offering to help with my company…for a fee I’d already paid.

Sometimes, faith means doing the hard things. Choosing faith over fear, stepping into the unknown. That’s what I did. This past week, you may have noticed a change in my blog. Because I bought my website hosting. I’m still looking into the best ways to edit without tiring my hands . . . but it’s progress. It’s putting my faith to work over my fear, and proving that my disability doesn’t stop me.

So, as I close this blog, hopeful of what’s to come, let’s talk in the comments:

How do you choose faith over fear in the everyday?

Be Blessed!