Crippled by fear?

 Hi everyone
First of all, do you ever get like anxiety when you're about to post something online, maybe on your Instagram or youtube channel or whatever? Because I do & from my first post till now, I've been contemplating whether or not to continue with this because I said I was going to try and be open, which is hard but I'm here now.

Apart from that, I've been busy with exams, and let me tell you something, I know I'm just starting and it gets tougher as you go up but medicine is not for the weak, honestly. So only go into it if you are passionate about it, LIKE REALLY REALLY

Anyways today, I'm going to be talking about fear.
No one tells you how crippling & limiting fear is, fear of losing a loved one, fear of not being good enough etc or even how it puts you in a spot & then you begin to think of a million scenarios that most likely would never happen. 

For a while, I struggled with fear. I had an idea of what I was struggling with but I did not know exactly what it was and because I did not know what, I did not know how to effectively deal with it.

I think I'd been struggling with it for a while but there was so much going on during the lockdown, so it just got worse. I'd get scared if some of my family members weren't back at a particular time & don't even let me get started on phone calls because hm & then one day it was bad so I spoke to a friend & honestly, what he said just made everything worse, he said something about attracting what you fear & I was like WHATTTT??

And after he said that, I just started talking to God, like I don't want this anymore and all, I could say I was broken at that point, tired even and earlier that day, I tried remembering some verses to help me ease what I was dealing with but nothing came up & so while praying, I was like okay if I go back to your word, where will I start from ( you know when you're looking for a verse to just help you with a particular problem) but I couldn't find anything and so I went back to talking to Abba, & after a while, I don't know how to describe what happened exactly and you might not even believe me and that's okay but I know I felt so much love at a point & then he said to me "For I have not given you a spirit of fear..." and that was the turning point for me. 

Things did not just get better immediately but when I compare myself now to how I was back then, I can honestly say that there has been so much progress which I'm grateful for.

See, I realized that most of what I was feeling was because I was focusing more on this world and everything going on, rather than on God and who I am in him and so I came up with flashcards to always remind me of my identity.

A sermon I listened to "I Found my Fight by Charles Metcalf" also made me realize that we actually wrestle not against flesh and blood but the most amazing part about my Abba is that he also told us what to do in such battles (Ephesians 6:14-17) and that yes we would have "issues" but we need to always remember that we fight from a place of victory (Romans 8:37, 1 John 4:4). 

All I'm trying to say is, when faced with certain battles in life, it is important to know WHAT you're fighting and WHO you're fighting, knowing this helps you understand HOW to fight & because I did not know who I was fighting or what exactly I was fighting earlier, I used a temporary strategy which was to go off social media but that didn't work because I didn't know what I was fighting. 

So tell me (if you don't mind), about battles you've faced so far and how you've overcome them and even if you're still struggling? I want to hear about it too.

Love, Ibiene.