The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. – Proverbs, 9:10
For many years, the above quote was one of my favorites, but I never fully grasped its meaning until disability entered my life.
Bipolar disorder and cerebellitis reintroduced me to myself; a new journey began.
In previous blogs, I wrote about the ladder that God decided I should build.
After spending more than a decade constructing it, I assumed that the ladder represented everything He wanted me to learn.
Naturally, I was wrong.
It was then that He handed me an artichoke.
I imagined the leaves as the many things that I was afraid of, and as I peeled them away, I uncovered the central core of the artichoke, the heart of my fear. The fear that gave birth to, and nurtured all of the others: the fear of God.
When I was a child, the fear of God meant only one thing: Sister Mary-May-Jesus-Have-Mercy-On-Your-Soul roaming the grade school halls dragging her nine-foot paddle behind her, stopping every pupil along the way, and warning them to behave, or she would put the fear of God in them.
As a teenager, it was the prefect of discipline sneaking up behind a student who was cursing at his locker because it would not open, and whispering in his ear, “Are you familiar with the phrase, ’the fear of God’? See me at three.”
I naturally assumed that the fear of God was not a good thing. – Excerpt from “I’m Afraid”
Of course, I was wrong again.
The more time I spent climbing the ladder and peeling the artichoke, the more I discovered what the fear of God actually meant to me.
I offer these thoughts for your consideration.
Communication, I believe, is the key to understanding one another.
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The saga continues in my next blog.
Do Not Be Afraid!!!