When Fear Feels Like Your DNA (And How to Finally Let It Go)
Letting go of fear is one of the hardest things God ever asks us to do, because fear doesn’t usually show up as a single moment of panic. It shows up slowly, over years, until it feels less like something you’re carrying and more like something you’re made of.
When Fear Moves In and Never Leaves
Some fears don’t just visit you, sweet friend. They move in. They unpack their bags in the quiet corners of your mind and start whispering the same words over and over — not enough, too late, failure — until one day you stop questioning them and start believing them. After enough years of that whispering, it doesn’t even feel like a lie anymore. It feels like who you are. Like it was written into you before you ever had a say in the matter.
If you’ve ever sat curled up in a corner of your own life, overwhelmed by everything you haven’t done yet because you’re too afraid to start, I want you to hear this clearly: just because something has lived in you for a long time doesn’t mean it belongs there.
You Know What You Need to Do. That’s Not the Hard Part.
Here’s what I think is so hard about this season of letting go of fear — you usually already know the next step. You know there are things you need to do. Doors you need to walk through. Conversations you need to have. And still, you sit frozen at the edge of them, because the fear feels safer than whatever’s waiting on the other side.
That’s not weakness. That’s just how long you’ve been carrying this, all by yourself.
What Johnny’s Gift Taught Me About Letting Go
In my book Johnny’s Gift, Johnny spends his whole life building walls to protect himself. And honestly, he has good reason to. His gift lets him feel everyone else’s pain as if it were his own, so those walls kept him standing when the weight of the world got to be too much.
But there comes a moment in his story where he realizes something that changes everything: if he truly wants to have love in his life, he has to let go. He can’t keep his heart wrapped in armor and open to love at the very same time. The very walls that were meant to protect him were also the things keeping love out.
I think so many of us are living Johnny’s exact struggle, just without the supernatural gift attached to it. We build walls out of old hurt, old fear, old disappointment. And those walls do exactly what they’re built to do — they keep the pain out. But they keep the love out right along with it.
Letting Go of Fear Starts With One Small Breath
The Bible tells us in 1 John 4:18 that there is no fear in love, because perfect love casts out fear. Not because the fear was never real. Not because what you went through didn’t matter. But because love is stronger, and it was never meant to compete with fear for space in your heart. One of them has to go.
You don’t have to have it all figured out today, sweet friend. You just have to be willing to loosen your grip, one small breath at a time, and let something bigger in.
Letting go of fear isn’t a single dramatic moment. It’s a hundred small choices to open your hand just a little wider than you did yesterday.
Sweet friend, what’s one fear you’re ready to start letting go of today? I’d love for you to share it in the comments below — you are never alone in this.
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With love and faith, Marilyn 💜