UPFRONT December 12, 2005 Issue

Never limited

MARILYN JONES, SENIOR WRITER

My dear friend Donna told me once—at a moment when I'm sure I needed a little chastising in the compassion department—"You need to learn that there are many ways people can be paralyzed, Marilyn. It's not always just physically ...." Wow. That wake-up call has never stopped waking me up.

In my own life, I had allowed fear to trap me and keep me paralyzed ever since I was a kid. Every year, from May through October, I stayed away from hiking, swimming in lakes and rivers, even just getting out of the car if I thought I might see a snake. And forget going to a movie that had a scene with a snake or reading a book with a picture of one. National Geographic had to be previewed by my family before I'd leaf through it. What a prison I made for myself.

But about ten years ago, I found freedom from this debilitating phobia through understanding that God's kingdom, which is everywhere, all at once, could never have a single element of evil. I wasn't afraid of snakes, I discovered. I had been believing that evil existed. The healing of that belief changed my life. What freedom I have had over this last decade—swimming, hiking, even going to the snake house at the San Diego Zoo. Whew! That's a healing.

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