Do you ever notice that you give too much power to the fears in your life? Boy, I do. I can’t believe at times how my fears mandate the decisions I make and that I am personally responsible in allowing those fears to have the best of me. The other day, I was getting into the car which was parked in the garage. Well, in the corner of my eye, I saw a group of animal droppings at the floor of the garage cabinet. I have seen mouse droppings before and I knew that this was no mouse. This was a much bigger animal. These droppings had to be from a rat. Oh, I hate rats! And the thought that "she" was making a home in my garage was not good. My husband was out of town (of course) and my children are useless in this case because one of them is just as fearful as me, one of them ignores it and one of them wants to keep it as a pet. So, I knew that I was going to have to deal with this alone. "Oh God, help me." First thing I did was call Terminex and had them set traps. (I am very independent except when it comes to rats). Second thing I did was to keep my car out of the garage and then I decided to not re-enter the garage until the predator was caught. I completely changed my lifestyle to avoid seeing this rodent. I didn’t go into the garage for days and days and you can’t believe the thoughts of torment I had just looking at the garage doors.

Well, my brave and fearless husband came home and his first obligation to me was to check the traps. Can you believe that those unbelievably large rat traps were empty? But do you know why they were empty? Because my eye had deceived me. The droppings were not RAT droppings at all…the droppings were dead rolly Poley bugs! Yes, to my surprise, I had around 10 bugs that all died together in my garage. I had assumed something that was not even right and then I adjusted my lifestyle to accommodate my fears without ever checking to see if those fears had any validation. What a joke!

How many times do we allow our fears to become more victorious than the facts? How many times do we assume something to be true when we are just believing a lie? I learned a big lesson. God’s word is true and I can believe Him. He does not want me to live in fear over anything because fear gives power to the father of lies. The Lord has gone out of His way to tell us that He has not given us the spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind…even when dealing with rodents! I have learned so much in writing the Victory in the Valleys summer study. God wants me to be victorious in every day life, dealing with every day issues.  He does not want the enemy to have any strongholds in my life that are based on fear. This July, we are going to address issues of fear head on! We are going to learn how to apply God’s priniciples to our every day life to not only claim His peace but to maintain peace. Don’t you want all that God has promised you? Me too! I pray I see you there so we can walk in victory together! Life is too short to not live it to the fullest.  –Tonilee