For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. (2 TIMOTHY 1:7)

I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (PHILIPPIANS 4:13)

I have a bunch of "irrational" fears. You know, the kind of thing that you're afraid of without a logical explanation. For example, I'm scared of spiders. I don't understand why. But even the tiny spiders, I freeze up when I see them. I only know that I always had a fear that maybe a spider is trying to wrap me up and eventually eat me. Even though I know they don't usually do that... I mean, it's never been reported to have happened.

Earlier today (Wednesday) I started learning to get rid of one of my irrational fears. I have a fear of getting water in my ears and nose. It's the fear of how water sounds when you're submerged. Like when you get water in your ears.

I don't understand it, because I remember that when I was 5 or 6 years old, I knew how to swim. I mean, we were at the beach, and I could do butterfly strokes with my cousins all the way across the beach. I don't know when I forgot how to swim, and when I started being afraid of submerging.

As I've said before, our new house has a pool. And it's filled up and ready to use already. So we went in for an evening dip. And, with much mental preparation, Abby helped me get over my fear of being submerged. It's pretty exciting. I even opened my eyes under water. Under water is a lot less visible than I thought it would be.

I have one more major irrational fear, which, by God's grace, I'll get over too. And that's a fear of talking to girls I like. You see, I make friends easily. I can talk to the prettiest of girls, and the most difficult of people, and get along alright. But when it's a girl that I like, I have problems. I freeze up. I know what to say but I can't get my body to perform the necessary motions to actually talk. My mind is racing, and everything goes in slow motion. It feels like I'm standing there for hours, my mouth going dry, and my vision blurring.

What's funny is that my fear isn't really that I'm afraid of being rejected. For instance, I usually am just trying to befriend the girl first. I'm not trying to ask her out, or even ask her name. I just want to start a conversation. So there's very little risk of rejection there.

Oh well. I have over a week more to pray about it, before I get to see the girl that I like again (possibly) at the next Soul Stop.