Home Alone

To him who is in fear, everything rustles.  ~ Sophocles 

From A Personal Journal Entry:

 

As I write this I’m home alone. It’s dark outside; my husband is not due back for hours, and I hear frantic yelling—loud voices coming from the woods.

 

You must understand; we are isolated, surrounded by state forest; we have only one neighbor to the side of us. Their dogs are barking like crazy. 

 

The doorknob just jiggled.

It is locked; my husband insisted before he left this morning. My heart is racing; my mouth has gone dry. I head to the bedroom a the far end of the house, turning lights on as I go. I enter the darkened room and open the window so I can hear outside.

I am standing stock still, not breathing. 

Male voices are yelling in the distance. The only thing I hear clearly is, “I’m going toward the house with the dogs.”

Flashlights flicker in the darkness and there is crashing in the dense forest. I hear someone stumble out onto the road in front of the house and I could hear the clacking sound of his bow and arrows.  

My scary predator turns out to be a hunter trying to find his way out of the woods after darkness has descended. He’s probably more scared than I am and that’s saying something. 

Though reality became clear it didn’t take long for my senses to be on alert. My fear rose faster than the temperature in July. And, that wiggling of the doorknob, was imagined; it sprung from a past event when our house was broken into years ago. During that time John used to travel and I was alone with three small children. Fear reigned every night after sundown. And a piece of that just came to life after 26 years. 

Fear is often triggered from a past experience. This is one of the things I talk about in my book project called, Practically Fearless. 

Fear comes upon us in a matter seconds and produces an involuntary response. A sound, a word, anything can produce a reaction: spiking the heart rate, sucking the air out of our lungs, and giving the mind free reign in its reactions.

The trick is to reason past the initial firestorm to the reality of the situation. And, remembering who God is and that He is with us. 

This story could have just as easily gone a different way—the scarier one. So glad it didn’t. Yet, I am glad I saw my reaction first hand and was able to see it play out (research, you know). 

How about you? What real or imagined rustles have you experienced?

I am practically fearless, some of the time!

 

 

 

Jeanne

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 7 - 31 Day Blog Challenge