Tuesday, October 28, 2014
The year was 1985 and at the age of 7 years old I would be introduced to a movie that would instill a childhood fear that I would carry with me even to this day. The year before, 1984, MGM studios released a film by the title Red Dawn. This movie started by showing a small town in Colorado and then showing the sky filled with Soviet, Nicaraguan, and Cuban soldiers parachuting from the sky and landing on the local high school's football field. The students at the high are all looking out the windows of the school to see this terror unfolding. When the soldiers land they start shooting everyone and you see all of these high school students dead hanging out the school windows. Several boys see what is about to happen and they take off into the mountains to take cover and get a plan to save their town. Here in the mountains they have to figure out how to survive and I remember drinking deer blood was part of this survival. I do not remember watching the rest of the movie. Maybe I was so terrified by what I saw and kept thinking about those events or my 13 year old brother realized that I was in the room and shouldn't be watching this movie.
All I know is that that one movie changed me forever. I was young enough that I didn't fully understand what I had seen, but I also knew that someone couldn't reassure me that what I had seen would never really happen. My very first fear was of the Incredible Hulk, but I could calm down because I would be told that it was just an actor painted green, but this time they could tell me it was just a movie, but I wasn't buying it. I was also too young to not even be distracted by the fact that a young Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen stared in this movie :). I was young enough that for months I watched the skies by day and crawled in bed with my parents almost every night because I was so terrified. It was also the first time that in my 7 year old mind that I knew being scared and the absolute need for a plan had to be together. For being 7 years old I actually had a great plan. I knew that if we under attack if we could get to my Granny Douglas' farm we would be safe. In my mind she lived so far away from civilization that nobody would find us. I also knew that on her farm we would have food from the animals and garden, eggs from the chickens, and water from the streams that ran by her house. Months went by and I lived with this constant fear and I am not sure when we finally went to see Granny and once I knew my plan would work the fear started to release its grip.
Since I was 7 years old the threat of war and now what we know as terrorism has gripped my heart with fear. For most of my high school and college years this fear was not really fueled by any incidents going on around the world. I do remember in the year 1990's being glued to the TV during the Gulf War, but I felt confident that the fighting when never reach the US. When September 11th happened so many of those fears were brought back to life and I spent weeks scared of going places and vowing to never fly again.I remember watching the news that morning while it was happening and I knew that my child hood fears were coming to life before my eyes. As weeks went by and it seemed like this was one horrific event was isolated and that probably wouldn't happen again, life returned to normal.
So that brings us to 2014 and the age of instant access of Internet. We have so many sources of news and Face book, Twitter, news after news apps, and the "need" to keep us informed. A few years (maybe like 10 years) ago I stopped watching world news. It was too much for me and my anxiety. I would watch local news sometimes to find out about the weather or other stories, but I knew that I did not need to know about all the violence and trouble of this world. I knew that if I was in immediate danger my husband or law enforcement or my weather app would let me know. A few months ago I came the closest I have ever come to deleting my FB account. Back in the spring or maybe early summer when the Russia/Ukraine incident was happening my FB feed was filled with news articles and warnings of threats to the US and I knew that seeing this news was unhealthy for my fear. Those articles only lasted a little while because of the more dangerous and more likely threat ISIS came on the scene. With each link posted my anxiety and fear level would rise. I would read each article and my imagination would send me to terrible places and I would have to get a plan and I would totally be obsessed with getting a plan. One article that was floating around was title something like "If ISIS carries out this plan 9/10 Americans would die". It was about if they hacked into our electric grid and shut everything down and we would be without electricity and water for at least a year. So in my madness I start calculating "so 365 x 5 equals.....I will start collecting bottles of water." I get to the end of the article and like most articles the last paragraph states that this probably wouldn't happen, but it could. My thought is great we just gave them an idea! There was an article about Chicago maybe being a target and it sent me spinning. For most of August and into September I was insane. I would run to my car each time I had to go somewhere. I lived in constant fear of my neighbors and parents at the kids school (I get I live in Chicago, there is always a heightened sense of cautious). One day I went to my car and I saw this group of guys in the car behind me. They had sunglasses on and were just staring a head and when I pulled out they also pulled out and I started panicking and in about 10 seconds I had those poor guys slaughtering the entire neighborhood when they were probably just leaving from having lunch with their mom.
My prayer for this post is that you are being cautious with the links and articles you are posting on social media. It might seem like a good idea because you think you are preparing people. Many might be thinking, "Just don't read the articles if it makes you crazy!" but that's not how my planning brain works. I have to read it so I can get a plan! We live in a messed up world and I agree we have to be diligent, cautious, and above all else praying, but a lot of these that are being posted are just feeding fears and anxieties. Out of all the links that were shared I read one that has really helped me with all these fears. It is sad that is article seemed to be circulated the least, but it was an article published August 3, 2014 from Israel Today. You can read the full story at the link or you can google it on other sites, but the title of the article is
All I know is that that one movie changed me forever. I was young enough that I didn't fully understand what I had seen, but I also knew that someone couldn't reassure me that what I had seen would never really happen. My very first fear was of the Incredible Hulk, but I could calm down because I would be told that it was just an actor painted green, but this time they could tell me it was just a movie, but I wasn't buying it. I was also too young to not even be distracted by the fact that a young Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen stared in this movie :). I was young enough that for months I watched the skies by day and crawled in bed with my parents almost every night because I was so terrified. It was also the first time that in my 7 year old mind that I knew being scared and the absolute need for a plan had to be together. For being 7 years old I actually had a great plan. I knew that if we under attack if we could get to my Granny Douglas' farm we would be safe. In my mind she lived so far away from civilization that nobody would find us. I also knew that on her farm we would have food from the animals and garden, eggs from the chickens, and water from the streams that ran by her house. Months went by and I lived with this constant fear and I am not sure when we finally went to see Granny and once I knew my plan would work the fear started to release its grip.
Since I was 7 years old the threat of war and now what we know as terrorism has gripped my heart with fear. For most of my high school and college years this fear was not really fueled by any incidents going on around the world. I do remember in the year 1990's being glued to the TV during the Gulf War, but I felt confident that the fighting when never reach the US. When September 11th happened so many of those fears were brought back to life and I spent weeks scared of going places and vowing to never fly again.I remember watching the news that morning while it was happening and I knew that my child hood fears were coming to life before my eyes. As weeks went by and it seemed like this was one horrific event was isolated and that probably wouldn't happen again, life returned to normal.
So that brings us to 2014 and the age of instant access of Internet. We have so many sources of news and Face book, Twitter, news after news apps, and the "need" to keep us informed. A few years (maybe like 10 years) ago I stopped watching world news. It was too much for me and my anxiety. I would watch local news sometimes to find out about the weather or other stories, but I knew that I did not need to know about all the violence and trouble of this world. I knew that if I was in immediate danger my husband or law enforcement or my weather app would let me know. A few months ago I came the closest I have ever come to deleting my FB account. Back in the spring or maybe early summer when the Russia/Ukraine incident was happening my FB feed was filled with news articles and warnings of threats to the US and I knew that seeing this news was unhealthy for my fear. Those articles only lasted a little while because of the more dangerous and more likely threat ISIS came on the scene. With each link posted my anxiety and fear level would rise. I would read each article and my imagination would send me to terrible places and I would have to get a plan and I would totally be obsessed with getting a plan. One article that was floating around was title something like "If ISIS carries out this plan 9/10 Americans would die". It was about if they hacked into our electric grid and shut everything down and we would be without electricity and water for at least a year. So in my madness I start calculating "so 365 x 5 equals.....I will start collecting bottles of water." I get to the end of the article and like most articles the last paragraph states that this probably wouldn't happen, but it could. My thought is great we just gave them an idea! There was an article about Chicago maybe being a target and it sent me spinning. For most of August and into September I was insane. I would run to my car each time I had to go somewhere. I lived in constant fear of my neighbors and parents at the kids school (I get I live in Chicago, there is always a heightened sense of cautious). One day I went to my car and I saw this group of guys in the car behind me. They had sunglasses on and were just staring a head and when I pulled out they also pulled out and I started panicking and in about 10 seconds I had those poor guys slaughtering the entire neighborhood when they were probably just leaving from having lunch with their mom.
My prayer for this post is that you are being cautious with the links and articles you are posting on social media. It might seem like a good idea because you think you are preparing people. Many might be thinking, "Just don't read the articles if it makes you crazy!" but that's not how my planning brain works. I have to read it so I can get a plan! We live in a messed up world and I agree we have to be diligent, cautious, and above all else praying, but a lot of these that are being posted are just feeding fears and anxieties. Out of all the links that were shared I read one that has really helped me with all these fears. It is sad that is article seemed to be circulated the least, but it was an article published August 3, 2014 from Israel Today. You can read the full story at the link or you can google it on other sites, but the title of the article is
Iron Dome Operator: God Moved Missile We Couldn't Hit
This article tells about actual events in Israel where there was no other explanation for targets being missed except that God moved the missiles. I loved this article because it was not speculation or "what ifs", but something that had happened!
One quote from this article that is so powerful says, "“We do aim [our rockets], but their God changes their path in mid-air,” a Hamas commander was said to have told someone who wondered why Gaza-based militants can’t seem to hit their targets.
Reading this article put everything in perspective for me and changed how I react to the fear that comes to choke me out. Fox New, CNN, ABC, Bill O'Reilly, all other news sources and personnel the President, and ISIS themselves do not know what is going to happen. We can all plan, but God has the final say on how it will unfold. My prayers these days is the following.
"Lord, they may be planning evil against us.( Insert whatever I am worried about at that moment, might be about to happen). Please step in and change their plans."
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