Overcoming Fear

by Casey Fedde

Fear is the source of all problems. At least most of my challenges have been rooted in fear.

When I am stressed out about upcoming tests, papers, midterms, and finals, I first address my fear of failing, of not articulating my thoughts clearly on paper, and of nervousness on the big day. Every time I have prayerfully handled the fear, I have been able to move with grit and grace throughout the respective experience.

The thing I’ve had the most trouble with is a fear of public speaking—especially when the speech involves a microphone. I have prayed about this with Christian Science practitioners at various times in my life. As a Christian Scientist, I’ve learned that fear is something that can be overcome, because it’s actually unreal. It doesn’t always feel unreal, but as I’ve gotten a better handle on who and what God is, and what He’s created, it makes sense to me that fear couldn’t be a part of that. And I’d done just fine in all my public speaking activities. But I still feared public speaking whenever the next speech came around.

Since November of last year, I worked with a team of inspiring individuals in planning the Northern California Sunday School Workshop, which took place on March 1st. When I accepted the invitation to be a part of the planning team, I thought that being in charge of logistics would keep me in the background of the event. But half way through the planning process, my team asked if I would give the youth perspective speech to kick off the day’s activities. And somehow, "yes" fell from my mouth. Immediately I felt like taking back my willingness to talk about youth perspectives, but I told myself that God would walk me through this four-minute moment of public speaking, even with a microphone involved.

Then a few weeks before the workshop, I was overloaded with papers and reading for my English classes and assignments for my Latin class, so I had to bow out of giving the youth perspective speech. One of my teammates eagerly took it on for me, which allowed me to focus on my class assignments. And conveniently, it got me out of giving my speech. Problem solved.

However, the night before the workshop, while doing a run-through of the next day’s schedule, we realized that someone needed to welcome the audience to the church, inform them of important logistical information—like where the bathrooms are located—and read some legal jargon about the videotaping of the event. My fellow committee members all looked at me.

Now I had been feeling so embraced by love that week while working on last minute workshop details that it didn’t register with me until the next morning that I had once again accepted a moment with the microphone….

I was standing at the auditorium doors as the workshop started when one the guys helping with the event came up to me. He asked what else needed to be done. I told him that everything was ready to go and that I was just trying to figure out what I was going to say to all these people. He must have seen how terrified I was of making my little speech. I had a first class case of stage fright. He looked at me and said, "Moses didn’t know what to say either."

That is exactly what I needed to hear. He then told me more about Moses’ fear of speaking to the people of Israel. I don’t know if I simply took comfort in knowing that someone as great as Moses was, on some level, just like me, or if I was just captivated at hearing something other than the usual reassuring "you’ll do fine." The fear instantly left and I felt so excited about sharing the love I have of Sunday School—even if it was just the logistical matters of this Sunday School event—with everyone.

When Moses was faced with speaking to the people of Israel, he said to God, "I amnot eloquent…” and “…but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." That is exactly what I had been telling myself for years. I felt like I was not articulate enough, not quick enough to think on the spot, and not confident about what I had to say.

But God reminded Moses that He had made his mouth and told him, "Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what though shalt say."

And for the first time, I felt like God was right there with me as I spoke. I was able to comfortably get my message across to a room full of people. I was finally seeing myself more how God sees me: able, articulate, and courageous.

I am so grateful that my friend shared his thoughts about Moses with me. His words helped me let go of my fear of public speaking. And I know that when I let God put the right words in my mouth, like Moses, I will be fearless, even when I have to hold a microphone!

Ex 4:10 I am not (to 3rd ,)
I am not eloquent,

Ex 4:10 but
but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.

Ex 4:12
Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Fear. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.