A.R. Geiger

I have a secret to tell you.

Are you ready for it?

Okay, here it is.

I am afraid almost all the time.

Whew. Glad I got that off my chest.

But really and truly, as honest as honest can be . . . I am afraid almost all of the time.

I am also a Christian. I love Jesus and I am afraid and those two things are not supposed to exist in the same space.

At least, we’re not supposed to admit they exist in the same space.

He holds those in perfect peace who trust in him, right?

But I am afraid. I am not afraid of what will happen to me when I die, or that I’ll never experience love, or anything existential.

My fears are ordinary. Speaking in public. Meeting other humans. Embarrassing someone else or myself. Hurting someone’s feelings. Making mistakes that I can’t fix.

Job interviews.

Always, always job interviews.

Ordinary things.

When I was a preteen, sleepovers were out of the question. I would work myself up until I puked. Learning to drive was a nightmare. So was ordering a sandwich in Subway. And, as much as I have learned to cope with it, it has lasted into my adulthood. The birth of my first child was accompanied by a rush—not of love like all the mommy blogs talk about—but of pure, unadulterated terror that this little being was somehow going to die and that it was going to crush my entire life irretrievably and I would never be okay again.

That, by the way, is called severe postpartum anxiety and depression, and I finally—nearly a year and a half later—am on the proper medication to deal with it.

Thank God.

Also, I think you should know that I managed to keep my son alive, and we are currently tossing a tennis ball back and forth while I write this.

You should also know that I, who was afraid of sleepovers, traveled alone to Scotland and lived there for three months when I was nineteen, then to flew to Cambodia for another two. There is nothing in the world I love more than a good road trip, and I have done multiple cross-state roadtrips completely alone. And LOVED them.

I still hate Subway, but that’s mostly about their soggy bread.

Blech.

My point is that I have been afraid and continue to be afraid—and I have found courage, and I continue to find courage.

And a great, great deal of that courage comes from stories.

I am a voracious reader, and I have been since I was three years old and first learned to read. I devour books fiercely, and never more than when life feels too much to face. I have heard so many people scoff at fiction and call it escapism, but to me, it has never been about escaping my life.

Stories, above all, have given me the courage to live.

A passage from the Tale of Despereaux gave me the courage to walk into the biggest job interview of my life.

Samwise Gamgee helped me to walk through some of the hardest, most plodding years of my career.

Walter Mitty inspired me to seek a life outside of the ordinary.

Bernadette Fox gave me the pluck I needed to start again when I failed.

I believe, at the core of who I am, that stories are the way that God has designed us, as humans, to share courage. That when the night is dark and the world is heavy and so, so much of what is cruel is bearing down on us, we are meant to draw together and tell stories about people who were strong and weak and afraid and courageous and who made so, so many mistakes, and who were inherently human in way that gave us the courage to be human as well.

So that is my invitation to you. I am taking a year to look at and celebrate the stories that have given me the courage to live. I’ll be posting about them once a week, and a bit in-between, but I don’t want to do it alone. If you have stories that have given you courage, please share them. Tell me what they are, tell me why.

Gather with me, here, while the world is heavy. And let’s talk about the stories that give us courage.