Loose Ends for September
Loose Ends…Confessions Of An Unfinished Faith – by Nichole Nordeman
“Fear Factor” – appeared in the August, 2006 Issue of CCM Magazine
There is a slight misconception about the glamour of being on tour. Someone, a long time ago, started some vicious rumor about how exciting road life is. Playing music, connecting with people, watching God at work…those are the exciting things. But unless your name is Sting or Madonna or Bono, the most adventure you will find on the road, depends largely on whatever is walking distance from your room at the Fairfield Inn. More often than not, this is usually a Wal-Mart, which is where I found myself looking for beach towels with my road manager Michelle, in the middle of Arkansas recently.
No beach in sight, of course. But heck if we weren’t going to be ready. After we’d purchased our towels we began to walk across the parking lot, and back toward our hotel. We were chatting…girl talk…discussing how appropriately prepared we were, should a body of water appear on the horizon.
Suddenly, without noise or warning, a man joined our stride and started walking next to us. Not near us. Not behind us. Directly next to us, with an alarming amount of poise and confidence…like it was the most natural thing in the world. Now, please understand that I have rehearsed this scenario in my mind a hundred times. As a woman, I am always aware of my surroundings. Always looking around the parking lot when I get in and out of my car. Always suspect of the guy who looks…well…suspect. I have, at times in my life, carried mace, learned basic self-defense and called the cops on suspicious looking weirdoes.
Which is why it becomes even more difficult to admit how I reacted to this strange man, who inexplicably started walking shoulder to shoulder with me in the middle of a parking lot.
I froze. My feet kept walking, but everything else ceased to function.
For some totally bizarre and unfathomable reason, I did absolutely…nothing. I was utterly terrified and paralyzed. I never once looked at his face. I did not quicken my pace. I did not motion to my friend to unleash ninja warfare on him (she seemed unfazed and still chatting) …I only froze. I saw my life flash before my eyes. I pictured him shoving us into his trunk. I saw the headlines…”Christian artist and road manager abducted…Foul play suspected…. Beach towels a mystery.” Fear had completely taken over, and I was, without a doubt, its prisoner.
We continued walking…the three of us…Laverne, Shirley and the serial killer for a few more minutes, and I still could not even find the courage to glance at him. Then he spoke. And I almost collapsed at the sound of the very familiar voice of Scott, my bass player. He himself, had been aimlessly wandering around Wal-Mart, saw us walking back to the hotel and just quietly caught up with us. And being a rather introverted type, never announced his presence or felt the need to engage us in conversation. He was happy just to tag along. After I scraped myself up off the pavement and we all had a good laugh, I sat in my hotel room thinking about the power of fear. So powerful, that it erased all common sense, all resolve, all determination to “step up” in the moment. It basically took me out at the kneecaps. I was simply too afraid to respond or react.
Fear is potent and central to our lives. The next time you watch the news, count how many times you hear a form of the word “terror.” And while fear is easy to identify on a global scale and in a time of war, consider the more subtle kinds of fear we breathe in and out all day. Career paths are chosen by our fear of financial instability. Relationships wither and die from a fear of intimacy. Fear of cancer motivates me to pick out certain vegetables in the produce department. Fear of rejection makes me laugh at jokes that are offensive and demeaning. Fear of judgment keeps me from raising important questions about my faith. And I know this might jeopardize my status as an Evangelical, but it astounds me to consider the number of people who continue to enter into a relationship with Jesus because a well-intentioned preacher spent half the sermon hollering about how hot the lake of fire is going to be. And naturally, people respond…out of fear. I think got “saved” five different times between the ages of 9 and 13 for the same reason.
1 John 4:18 makes one of the most uncomplicated and profound statements in the New Testament and it would be life altering if we lived it all day long.
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…”
I love the choice of the word ‘drives’…not tosses aside fear, not works around fear, but sends it packing. Buh bye. Imagine living a life where decisions, both personal and international, were made out of perfect love and not paralyzing fear. Imagine what that would look like to the world to see Christians responding from a place of certainty rather than reacting from a place of panic and damage control (a recent blockbuster movie staring Tom Hanks comes to mind).
I’m still a little freaked out by the way I just surrendered to my inevitable fate in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I would love to think that I would react very differently if it happened today, but I learned a lesson about what a formidable enemy fear can be, and it might take awhile for me to re-program my natural responses. Besides, if I had acted in self defense that might mean my bass player would still be in a body cast, which would make things tricky for him on stage every night. Still looking for that beach, btw…
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