Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but who ever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.
Proverbs 29:25
September 1970.
Bedtime was at nine o'clock. The school year just started and after dealing with homework for most of the evening, I wasn't really ready for bed.
My older brother and I shared a room. His bedtime was a half hour later. Most of the time I was still awake when he would come to bed. This night was no different from the rest, except that there was a question that was bugging the daylights out of me. Maybe that's why I couldn't sleep. I thought I would ask Steve if he knew what the answer was. After all, he was a lot smarter than me, because he kept reminding me of it all the time, and he is three and half years older than me, so he had to know the answer.
Big brothers are often times the tormentors of little brothers. Mine was no different. Only this night he wasn't a tormentor because he really wanted to help me. But his response to my question, well meaning as it was, shook me to my core. I’d soon find out that the imagination could create some pretty mean monsters if we let it.
So I asked him the question.
"Steve, what is a c-o-m-m-u-n-i-s-t?" I wanted to be sure I was saying it right. I thought it was a dirty word, because the context I heard the word in was always in a form of disgust.
"It's a type of government that is opposed to our government. Why do you ask?"
"No reason. I just heard the word and wondered what it meant."
He could have stopped there, and I would have been happy with that, but he didn't. He continued, "It's an oppressive government that wants to rule the world. I forgot who the president was, but he told a group of reporters that if we weren't careful, they would take over our country by 1971. When they take over a country, they get all the people together and brain wash them. It's called Reprogramming." (I later found out that it wasn’t a president that made the quote, but a senator from Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy.)
Thus began a nightmare that lasted a good two weeks till mom told me differently.
I don't remember sleeping too much that night knowing that my brother, MY-KNOW-IT-ALL BROTHER, had just dropped a bomb in my little psyche that basically said, "Our lives will be over in a short three months."
For the next two weeks I carried this around with me. Everywhere I turned, everything I heard, reminded me of what my brother told me on that particular night. For example: Television, my sanctuary didn't help at all. One of the television stations ran the movie, "Fahrenheit 451". It was a movie that dealt with a futuristic society that banned all types of reading and forced everyone to be equal. Then, there was another movie that told about when the Russians invaded Yugoslavia. The Russian army would go into the houses, drag out the men folk and shoot them in front of their women. Then with the war going on Viet Nam, I was growing more anxious with each passing day. It reminded me of a man needing to drain his bladder with no bathroom around and the only thing he sees or hears is water.
The next week, the pictures in my mind grew more vivid. I couldn't help but think of what it was going to be like to lose all of the freedoms we as a nation were blessed with. But what was more nerve racking was the thought that I would be losing my own life because of what I stood for. "Surely, they won't kill me? I'm just ten years old," I thought. "Maybe they would spare me and my family? Maybe we would just be reprogrammed? But I would lose Nan, Pa, Mom, Dad, Sharon and Steve." Well, Steven I wasn't to concern with, after all, he started this whole MESS! I didn't want to make that sacrifice. Maybe it would have been better off if they killed all of us because when my generation got old enough, we would surely try to do something about our captivity.
The anxiety kept growing. I couldn't control it much longer. I had to talk to someone about it. So I talked to Mom.
"Mom? Are the communists going to take over our country?"
"Who told you that?"
"Steven."
Deep sigh from Mom.
Now came the reassuring answer that would calm my aching mind. "No. Not as long as our boys are defending our freedoms." Momma always said the right thing at the right time.
Growing up, the communists were the enemy. They were faceless shadows that were meant to strike fear in the land of living by taking away our freedoms. It was my home, our home that they were out to ravage. Even now, if someone says he is a communist, I am on guard. Old fears never quite die out. Now, there is a new enemy of my adulthood that is a faceless shadow, who wants to bring down America, our home, simply because we are a considered an enemy of Allah. At least with the old Soviet Union we were the obstacles to their trek to world domination. Now, it seems, we are considered to be evil incarnate and must be removed from the face of the earth.
At a another time in history, when another mad man wanted the world to bow to him and his philosophy, back during the early days of World War II, Winston Churchill spoke to a group at Harrow's Boy School about the times they as a nation were facing. The Germans were bombing London day and night. I'm sure that the country of England was facing the same type of fear that we were on September 11 and the days after. Going over that speech, I can see why they called Churchill a Bulldog. His tenacity was his strength and he passed it to his nation. In the speech he was able to calm a nation's fears as well as those there in attendance by saying:
"...You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period - I am addressing myself to the School - surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy...."
When we call upon the Lord in times of strife it is His strength that gives us comfort. We praise the Father in the good times because it makes the victory that much sweeter. We praise the Lord for the leaders in our nation for we know that they are leaning on God for understanding and patience. Praise God for the strength He has given us to overcome our fears and Praise God that He has not left us when we need Him the most.
Praise God! Praise God that we live in times like this! What an exciting time to be alive and seeing history in the making. To see God's hand at work, and to see ordinary people do extraordinary acts of courage.
Although these times are scary and our imaginations can run amuck, these are good times as well. We need to gain strength from our God for the answers that calm all our fears. God can take our overworked imaginations, if we'll let Him, slow them down to a more sensible speed and allow sensible ideas to float to the surface of our worried minds.
It wasn't till I told my mother what was worrying me that I was able to overcome the fear of losing everything that I loved. When fears and imagination get the better part of us, do not run from fear but embrace it with the Lord's arms; for it is only then that we can overcome it.
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