It’s so easy to be afraid these days.  Bombings killed people senselessly this week in Belgium and Turkey, last month in Nigeria, while today yet another bomb claimed lives in Iraq.  My heart and prayers go out to all the victims, their families, and communities.

But it’s not just bombs and global terrorism that frighten our hearts.  Watching the divisive Presidential primaries, seeing the ugly face of prejudice, xenophobia, even violence?  In the United States? Where freedom and equality are the basic tenets of our Constitution and country?

It’s hard not to be very afraid.

Fear can decimate us, divide us, destroy what’s good… if we let it.

Faith can deliver us from fear, if we have courage that believes.  Courage is a two-way street:  it takes courage to have faith, and having faith gives us courage to face what we’re afraid of..

We need to exercise our faith, by having faith when clouds of darkness swirl around us and it’s hard to see the light, and by being faith that stands as a beacon in the night.

“Fear imprisons; faith liberates;

fear paralyzes; faith empowers;

fear disheartens; faith encourages;

fear sickens; faith heals;

fear makes useless; faith makes serviceable.” 

Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969)

grace, peace & courageous faith

Virginia

Psalm 27:1  “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the strength of my life, of what shall I be afraid?