And the answer is no.
And the answer is yes.
Let's just talk about the roads for a minute.
Twice I've been in a car that just narrowly missed a head on collision, Thai style driving being what it is. I've been in a car that passed a large, slow truck as we were coming around a hairpin turn on our way up the mountain. I've been in a car that barely skidded around a large water buffalo with a death wish, who was calmly munching his lunch on the other side of another hair pin turn, unseen until that crucial moment of avoidance.Let's just talk about critters for a moment.
I've brushed by a scorpion in my bare feet (which I've written about before). I've showered with a scorpion on more than one occasion. I lived for two weeks with cobra lurking the underbrush until the day he was cornered and crushed and taken home by the neighbours for lunch. I've had to run a little to avoid the charge of a wild boar. There's been a seven foot snake in the kitchen and brightly coloured, small orange-sized spider on the threshold. Another spider, the size of my hand and apparently quite venomous was just above my head the entire time I was on the toilet, and I didn't see him until I got up. I've been pushed aside quite suddenly so as not to step on the 20 cm centipede whose sting is worse than a tarantula and will send you to the hospital for days of painful recovery.
Let's talk about the elements for a moment.
I've been in a shelter when a sudden, violent storm blasted through, clutching frightened children as the metal shingles were being ripped off above us. I've been literally shaken out of my bed by a 4.9 earthquake whose epicenter was just 77 km away. I've slept blissfully unaware while a brush fire came close enough to the house to require a small brigade to beat it back, and cause a layer of ash to settle over the entire property by morning.
"Aren't you afraid?", folks will ask. And about these things, I would have to say, no, I'm not.
Surprisingly, even to myself, I seem to take each circumstance in stride. It's part of the adventure. Gives me lots of material to write about. We don't take stupid risks, of course. There are ways to make yourself more aware of the kinds of things we might encounter in Thailand that are not unlike how we bear-proof our cottages, or protect ourselves from ticks, or cope with ice storms and power outages.
So no. These things don't scare me much.
Impressed with my courage? Don't be. I'm about to out myself as a coward.
Because there is on thing that almost instantly fills me with over the top anxiety and almost paralyzing fear.
It's getting sick.
No one likes to get sick. And no one who's traveling likes to get sick in the way travelers often do get sick; the ways you take Dukoral for, shall we say. And I haven't really gotten all that sick in that traveler's kind of way, not for all the trips I've taken over the past eleven years. But if I do, even just a little bit, it triggers no end of fear for me.
Perhaps it's because it's happening to my body, and there's something about being so far away from home when something is happening to your body that's particularly stressful. Perhaps it's because I am far away from home and the kind of medical care I'm used to. And very likely it's related to the fact that one time, when I was in Thailand, I fainted. Passed out. And I didn't feel right for a few days after that. And it was just before I was set to fly home. By myself. And what if I passed out again on the layover in Korea? And I'm by myself? And what if, for whatever reason, they have to take me to the hospital there? Did I mention that I'm by myself?
I'm not by myself in Thailand. There is family there to care for me, make sure I get the best treatment possible. And they have done that, over the top, no matter what I might be dealing with, even if it's just that nasty cold I picked up on the plane.
But all I know is, that if I get just a little bit unwell, I'm not in a good space, having to talk myself down from the ceiling.
It's quite amazing how many times the Bible talks about fear. It's practically the first words out of the mouth of any angel messenger. "Don't be afraid." Moses speaks into the fear of the Israelites over and over again. Valiant warrior King David isn't shy about voicing his fears to God, as peppered throughout the Psalms.
During my last visit in February I ran into some difficulty, and parked myself in Psalm 31.
"In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge:
deliver me in your righteousness.
Turn your ear to me,
come quickly to my rescue;
be my rock of refuge,
a strong fortress to save me.
Since you are my rock and fortress,
for the sake of your name lead and guide me.
Free me from the trap that is set for me,
for you are my refuge.
Into your hands I commit my spirit;
redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth."
Psalm 31:1-5
Over and over I would read this out loud as I lay in my bed, waiting for the shakes to pass.
And right now I would so much rather be writing about how I said these verses over while the earthquake was happening because it sounds so much more dramatic and - well - necessary to picture it that way. But that's not what scared me. This did. And I needed to run into God's strong, safe place of being in charge. Every time, when I would get to that phrase, "Into your hands I commit my spirit" - those being, of course, words Jesus chose to recite back to God in His own moments of agony and terror - that would bring a deep sigh of release. And the more I pressed into His absolute sovereignty over my life, and the more I surrendered any outcomes to Him, the more I stopped fighting what was happening in my body and welcomed the easing of my mind.
Funny what makes us afraid.
And I am amazed that God knows what we need, and is so available, even in the most humbling of moments, to meet us there in our fear. And I am grateful, so grateful, that He pours His courage into me.
