Melted Mushroom Tops

I didn't realize just how much fear I keep bottled.  I figured it was guilt that I was trying to suppress; the guilt that I keep fishing for.  Fear, however, seems to be one of Satan's allies.  And he's a punk and fights dirty.

Del and I have been taking a new class on Wednesdays based on the book "The Search for Significance." Our great friend who leads the class told us before signing up, you're going to fight, you're going to cry, and sure enough all have happened.  This book, and mind you, it's only the workbook for the actual book, opened up this gaping wound that I thought I had defeated.  Fear.  

I didn't see fear coming around the corner.  Week 1 was God stories, singing, laughing about seating arrangements with friends.  Week 2 sliced my guts open.  I realized I had plenty of fears.  Fears of parenting, fears of being a great teacher, fears of old sins and habits, fears of being an adequate Sunday school leader, fear of being a good enough husband.  Fear is so prevalent in my life that it made guilt jealous.  

The drive that fuels me at work--fear of perfection peppered with a fear of failure.  That cringe I feel when I open my son's behavior log?  Fear of failure.  Everyone's going to know that's your son.  They'll be whispering behind your back before you know it, Ray.  I read a Facebook post recently about how jokes have some truth in them.  When people joke with me, "The apple doesn't fall far," is it a veiled attempt to remind me of that fear?  Apple.  Sin.  Fear.  

I used to have a distinct and deep fear of dying.  I would lie awake and chills would run through my bones with the guilt of my life, that shame.  I don't necessarily have a surefire guarantee that when I die that I'll be lying in grains of honey, but I have hope now.  No more chills on Houston summer days (and a wicked chill it was, the old fear that would freeze a man walking in the stifling humidity of a Houston afternoon).   

I used to have a great fear of being alone.  I see my dad, alone in the home he was raised in, surrounded by his memories and stacks of albums.  I don't know if the music he collects soothes him on solitary evenings, but meeting Delcina dispelled that fear of being alone.  

I once had a fear of not being popular, wanted.  It's the feeling I still get when we host parties, that five minutes before the first doorbell ring.  What if no one arrives?  What if everyone leaves early?  God has blessed me with so many friends, I could have a party every weekend and still not meet them all.  Who can say that?

But let's go to the root of the biggest fear I've always had--my weight.  Most who know me, have ever known me, knows I haven't necessarily battled weight as embraced it.  I was an overweight kid who used humor and sarcasm to gain friends so that my one glaring flaw would not sag underneath my too-tight shirt like some melted mushroom top.  I played football because guys my size played football.  All others were schizo nutjobs who wore leather jackets and sweated though gym class.  I was a fat high school kid who was too shy to ask girls out but not shy enough to flirt with all of them.  I became wordly.  Someone would make a passing comment, pinch my man boob, I defeated the laughter with viscous put downs or and occasional Tony Montana, crazy-mexican eye stare.  

I worked out some from those days, sometimes I lost weight and sometimes I didn't.  I took phentermine pills at some local free clinic that services minorities, welfare families and immigrants.  I took so many that I used my best friends' name on the form just to get a monthly supply.  I drank Slim-Fast and soup diets, I once even went without a burger for one month.  And by the end of all the work, the lemon-twist flavored salads, the running and half-walking laps with my mom at Aldine High School, the portion battles and calorie counter apps, I still gained it all back.  And more.  

So there's that fear again.  Our class leader asked us to respond aloud what fears we were holding back, the fears we jotted in the margins of this cruel book.  Jobs, motherhood, parental.  I said if i didn't have fear, I would probably be thinner.  Recently I kept telling myself that God is keeping me this way because he knows my sinful heart.  A thin me would be unreachable, too egotistical.  Suddenly I'd be that douche bag at the bar who screws the divorcees, drinks all night and still has a decent waist size.  Screw the Christianity and love and service for muscle shirts and rockin the guns!  But I know that is Satan again.  Trying to talk my way out of things.  Making me feel like less of a person.  

Both my wife and I have this same fear.  Our kids have digested our lives well enough that they don't say much to us.  They don't notice the late night fast food runs, the extra butter, the donut breakfast.  But my eldest has.  That fear regurgitated in that form of judgmental love only provided by mother-in-laws and that mean friend who has no filter.  The fear of the awkward inner eye that watches me when "Biggest Loser" is on.  That's all I need, some yelling celebrity to punish my way into losing weight.  And then I head to the kitchen for something sweet.

I'm joining Weight Watchers soon.  Loving promptings are leading me there.  Satan is already packing the bags to my return.  Every bite he's going to mock me.  Fear.  There aren't enough lines in the margin of my book to write the pounds of fear that weigh on my heart.