Breathing heavy, my eyes darted across the room to the door. “Run or fight,” I thought to myself. “Run or fight?”

 

With my heart racing and my pupils dilated. “Now’s the time,” I screamed internally. “Make a decision now!”  Fight or flight instincts kicked in and suddenly, it felt as if I had no control over my body.  Running was a consistent in my life: it’s what kept me alive.  Run, and get away.  Run, and make it to safety. I normally ran, but that night, I didn’t.

 

In a home where abuse was cavalier and hurt was common, running was the only option that guaranteed survival. Running normally saved me, but that one night, I didn’t run. That one time, I fought. That one night, I lost control. They pushed me and I pushed back. They screamed and I screamed louder. When it got violent, I got more violent.

 

That night lives in infamy as one of the worst nights of my life. I was only twelve— my brothers were thirteen and ten.  We were just children, forced to grow up in unsavory circumstances and pitted against each other for our survival.  That night, I did not run or submit or fall, but I most certainly lost.  By the standards in which we were being judged, I won, but still I lost. 

 

Before that night, I had never hurt anyone. I had been hurt. A decade of twisted physical abuse at the hands of mothers and brothers and people just passing through our lives made me callous.  Emotionally surviving abuse wounded me deeper than any cut or scrape ever could. It robbed me of my childhood and my family. Abuse routinely forced down whatever part of me tried to rise and survive.

 

Abuse always won in my life— it was always the bad guy. Abuse always won and the abusers… they always won too.

 

They won until one day, I decided not to let them win anymore.

 

One night, when it came down to fight or flight, I fought. One night, when panicked survival instincts were striving to protect me, I decided to protect myself.

 

What came out of that rage-fueled fugue state was horrifying. It wasn’t me. The things that I said weren’t me. The things that I did weren’t me.

 

I fought, and after that night, I decided to never fight again. 

 

So, I dedicated my life to becoming a runner.

 

When threatened, troubled, or frightened, I ran.

 

My fear of turning into the very thing that triggered my fight or flight instincts kept me running.

 

Running from responsibilities, running from conflict, even running from love— fear kept me moving and kept me running from anything that would ever host any possibility of hurting me.

 

But running also kept me from anything that would ever help me.

 

I ran from everything.  If you ask anyone who has been in my life at any point in time for the past twenty-five years, they would likely confirm the very same.  When things get tough, I run.  When conflict arises, I run.  When things seem scary or intimidating or overwhelming, I flee.  I don’t stay and fight;  I run.

 

It’s one of my largest character flaws.  It’s the one thing that I hate the most about myself.  It’s the one thing that I seem to be mercilessly judged upon by myself and by others.  My flighty tendencies have hurt myself and others more times and in more ways than anything else in my life has.

 

Growing up in a situation like I grew up in, I had to survive.  I had to do absolutely everything possible to ensure that I would survive.  In a life when running was equivalent to surviving, I ran.

 

I ran so much for so long that I forgot how to stay.

 

I ran so far for so long that I didn’t know how to stop.

 

Even when I was no longer fighting to survive, I still acted as if I was.

 

Even conversion into Christianity didn’t cure me.  Deliberate faith didn’t diminish the need for my survival response to take over in times of fear.  I carried my survival instinct because I had never not carried them.

 

Somewhere, sometime, however, I abandoned that.

 

I wish that I could pinpoint a day or a time or a remarkable situation that rendered me fearless. I believe that it wasn’t a singular moment in time that freed me, but rather, it was many moments, spread out over long periods of time, that assured me of God’s sovereignty.

 

When times of fear and trepidation would arise, I would run, but Jesus would always stay still. In the storm, Jesus always stayed still. I would run from commitment and authority and liability, making sure that I was never obligated to something that I couldn’t escape, but Jesus always stood still.

 

Fleeing gave me a sense of control.  Having the ability to run was a safety measure that I put in place in every structure of my life to ensure that I would always make it out alive and on top.  Running was something that I justified as a protection when it really was a hindrance to everything good in my life. But absolutely every time that I ran, Jesus stayed still. He was always Jesus in the boat.

 

Settled, sleeping, and serene, He was free of anxiety and care.  When I ran, He stood still.

 

He brought life to the story told by the disciples in the New Testament.  He emboldened the words on the page and gave them new meaning. He changed the way that I saw my life by being the same Jesus in all my moments of fear and anxiety that He was in all the stories that I had read about Him over the years. He was Jesus in the boat.

 

 

 

“Then He got into the boat and his disciples followed Him. Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”  He replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey Him!”

Matthew 8:23-27 NIV

 

 

 

 

When I first read that story, I thought I hard condemnation in the voice of Jesus. “YOU of little faith…” His words seemed pointed and angry.  “Why are YOU so….afraid?” His words seemed mocking.  It seemed to me that they challenged all the good in the disciple’s hearts by focusing on the bad.

 

The Bible told me that Jesus was kind, loving, and accepting… but that heart of lovingkindness didn’t seem to be represented in that particular Scripture.  I was afraid of Jesus.  I was afraid that seeing my fear, Jesus would cast me aside in disappointed anger.

 

I was afraid of my life, but I was also afraid of the one Man who could save me from it.

 

At that point, I was no longer just running from my fears, I was also running from Jesus and what He might think of me if He saw my fear.

 

But year after year, trauma after trauma, hurt and fear and pain and evasion piled up, and year after year, Jesus remained the same. Never condemning, always loving, He remained in peace even when peace was hardly perceivable to my terrified heart.

 

Little realizations would jolt my timid spirit.  “He doesn’t seem bothered by what is going on around me.  He doesn’t seem bothered by how I am responding to those things.  He just seems… calm?” He was always calm.  He was often quiet, but He was never condemning. He’d wait patiently for me to reach out my hand and accept His help, and whenever I would finally grab onto the support being offered to me, I was met with grace and understanding.

 

Initially, I expected judgement.  Over the years though, as consistency wore away at my diluted understanding of God, a pathway to tolerance was paved.  Whenever Jesus reached out His hand, I expected tolerance. I expected Him to disagree with my fear and I expected Him to be disappointed in my reactions. I also expected Jesus to tolerate them because He loved me, even in my failures.

 

Eventually though, tolerance eroded into an expectation of goodness. After showing me His relentless love, I began to anticipate grace when I reached for Jesus’s hand. He was consistent.  Each time that He reached down for me, no matter how I came to grab His hand, no matter what I was expecting Him to do or be, when I finally reached for Him, He was always the same. He was kind and generous and grateful to see me grasp for Him. He wasn’t reaching down out of obligation, He wasn’t doing it because it was the “right thing to do”, He was doing it because He loved me, and He was grateful that I would even reach for Him.

 

The story changed. When I reread the story, condemnation turned into conviction.  Harsh criticism turned into gentle invitation to come to the place where Jesus was.

 

 

“You, sweet ones that are still learning to be full of faith, why are you so afraid?  Why be afraid when I can calm the storms for you?  Reach out and trust me.  Everything can be completely calm. You don’t have to be afraid when even the wind and waves obey the One who loves you more than life.”

 

 

 

What once seemed like Jesus calling down anger on me in my disappointing behavior, now seems like hope that I can trust Him in everything. Where I once ran in fear that I would drown and die, I now stand confidently because my God stops the waves.  I have no need for fight or flight because I don’t fight my own battles anymore.

 

The Jesus that calmed the seas back then is the same Jesus that now waves His hands over the tumultuous circumstances that surround me and dissipates the storms into the sands. I don’t have to run or fight to protect myself in any way, because He is protecting me. When it looks like I am left unprotected and unsafe, like it looked for the disciples in the boat, it just means that Jesus has a higher perspective than I, and, at any point, He can call the seas to calm in an instant.

 

Now, I don’t run from, I run to. I no longer live in a constant state of survival— now I thrive. Problems arise and troubles call, but nothing is ever life or death. Nothing ever threatens me. Nothing requires me to lose my peace or my understanding that Jesus will calmly call out the storm. There is no exception to the rule.  Jesus will always be capable of calling down the storm.  He will always be waiting in love and in grace and in peace.

 

Your story can change, too.  It can become one of trust and peace.  It can become one of stillness and sleep.  Rest can be returned to you. There will always be storms— it’s an ocean, after all— but there will also always be a Jesus in the boat ready to calm them. Stop running from problems that crash around you like violent waves and start running to Jesus and His sovereign protection.

 

Run to Him.  It’s not too late.