Dark rooms frightened me. The thought of monsters made me cringe with terror. Dozens of doll portraits my aunt had displayed in her house made my heart freeze with panic.
But, hands down, the biggest fear I had was the ice cream truck.
While walking home from school, my sister and I would pass a gated parking lot that contained a white ice cream truck. Emblazoned on the sides was a red-haired clown wearing a wide maniacal grin. The truck never seemed to move but would sit there, day after day, month after month.
The rumor was any kid who walked by the truck would get taken and never seen again.
Bad things happened to these kids.
Scary things.
So, when approaching the lot, my heart would beat faster, my eyes would grow wider, and my legs would whip past, hoping to outpace the scary girl-and-boy hating clown inside the mysterious truck.
I told my mother, hoping she would provide some type of protection
But instead, she said,
"You have nothing to worry about."
I have nothing to worry about? Did this woman love me? Does she not know that there is a crazy creepy clown inside an ice cream truck? I'm going to get kidnapped the next time I walk by and she says don't worry?
"There's nothing to worry about," she said without a hint of concern. "If there was something serious like that going on, it would be on the news."
Drunk with disbelief, I stared at her from behind my strawberry milk colored glasses and concluded that she indeed did not love me. She was crazy.
And she was right.
The more I thought about her reasoning, the more it made sense, the more my fear slunk away. And though I never found out the story behind the abandoned ice cream truck, nothing ever happened. No child was abducted or maimed or hurt.
It was an unfounded fear.
Being an adult, she knew more than me, and knew that nothing like that could have happened.
Trusting her and her wisdom took away my alarm.
Most of our fears lie in our lack of control or lack of knowledge about the matter. Wonderful to know that trusting the intelligence and mastery of Jesus can leave us fearless.
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"Since God assured us, 'I'll never let you down, never walk off and leave you,' we can boldly quote, 'God is there, ready to help; I'm fearless no matter what. Who or what can get to me?'"
-Hebrews 13:5-6
