Faith Over Fear
By Briana C. Sanchez, B.A., M.A.
Have you ever woken up one day and asked yourself, “What am I doing with my life?” I remember the first day that I asked myself that question and that was on my 22nd birthday. I asked myself this question because I had just realized that my adult years had just started. I wasn’t in college anymore where all I had to worry about was school work and waking up in time for class. The passing days and years after my 22nd birthday I would continue to ask myself more questions such as, “Why am I going through this right now? Why me? Can I get through this?”
Throughout my adolescent years, I had an understanding that God was always with me and I did feel His presence. Although I felt His presence, I would only pray to God when I was going through a tough situation, before I ate, and before I would go to bed. As I got older life became harder and I became fearful of what was next in my life. One day while scrolling through social media I came across a post that said, “Have faith over fear.” This quote really stuck with me and I then realized I needed to strengthen my faith. I no longer wanted to fear the difficult situations that sometimes came my way.
To strengthen my faith, I knew my first step would have to be to strengthen my relationship with the Lord. To strengthen my relationship with the Lord I stopped only praying during tough situations, before I ate, and before I went to sleep. I started to pray all day and read His word, no matter what. This brought me an overflow of comfort because it opened my eyes to see how God is always with me and this made my faith stronger. I felt like deeper levels of my spirit were flourishing. After strengthening my faith, I began to notice that my fear during difficult situations started to fade away.
Now that I am in my late 20’s, I no longer have a fear of where I will go live life because I have faith that the Lord will always lead me to the best path. Throughout my 20’s, I witnessed so many people in my age group feeling like they should already have life figured out and stress out about adult life such as bills, building a family, and having a career. During the passing years, I felt the same way as many of them, but the difficult situations gave me an understanding that as long as I have faith the outcome would be fruitful.
Those questions that I used to ask myself no longer come to my mind because my faith makes me feel powerful. It excites me that as I continue to grow older, my faith will become stronger. The end result of every situation I go through will make me see how my faith pulled me through it. Having faith strengthens me every day and I will continue to keep my faith. I will no longer allow fear to make me feel like giving up when times get rough. Faith is the blueprint of life!
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