FAITH OVER FEAR

BY SARAH SCHMIDT

HATCHER PASS, ALASKA

What are some of your fears?

One of my fears is heights. There is something about being up high that makes me feel dizzy, and the world around me starts to spin. It was not the same for my mom, though. She loved hiking to high areas in the mountains and sitting on the edge of a cliff. She was fearless, it seemed to me. My mom loved the outdoors and adventure.

Around 1989, my mom began having some physical issues with her muscles. She was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. My mom, who was once very active in the outdoors, eventually became bedridden from the disease.

She was frustrated, but she was determined to get better. My mom prayed for healing of the disease, but she never saw healing this side of heaven. She died on July 26, 2017.

My mom’s faith was what carried her through 28 years of multiple sclerosis. She showed God to more people from a bedridden state than when she could stand on her own two feet.

Was my ever seemingly fearless mom fearful? I think so.

I think my mom’s greatest fear was to never walk again. But despite what she was feeling, my mom always took everything to God in prayer.

Psalm 34:4 (NIV) says, “I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.”

God doesn’t always answer our prayers in the way we want Him to. Sometimes, His answers are prolonged to show us something. For my mom, I think her deliverance arrived in the form of mountain-moving faith.

On July 4, 2022, my husband, Kris, and I hiked to the top of a mountain in Hatcher Pass, Alaska, to honor my mom’s birthday. Before the hike, I silently prayed for strength and courage to ascend to the top. I made it…and it was amazing up there!

With God’s help to overcome our fears, anything is possible.

My mom’s mountain-moving faith, despite her bedridden condition, helped shape my faith and make it what it is today. Her faith showed me that I could also defeat my fears when I rely on God's strength, not my own.

I learned to have FAITH over my FEARS.

So, friend, keep praying to God, keep waiting for your miracle, and keep believing that God can handle anything and everything you may be afraid of right now!