Practice What You Preach

This past week in our youth group at Fusion Church, EDGE, I spoke about confronting your fears. By pushing through our fears we become more fearless and confident. We become greater examples to others by not allowing fear to rule our lives enabling us to become America's Next Top ROLE Model. One of my fears that I spoke about is Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders. I told a story of how I usually will scream like a little girl and call for Melissa to come take care of the spider. No lie! Yeah say what ya want but spiders and I just have never seen eye to eye. Well several months ago I took a huge step in facing this fear. I went into Greg 2.0's bathroom and there was a gigantic spider in the sink. Well he was gigantic to me, about 3 inches long and a thick little sucker too. Anway what did I do first? I yelled for Melissa and jumped out of the bathroom, what else? She wasn't responding. I was like dang, I have to do something. So I leaned into the bathroom almost hoovering above the floor and turn on the water in an effort to drown the poor sap. I was like "yeah boy you goin' down". He went down the sink. After a little more water I turned off the faucet. I look down and here he comes! I was like what?!? I think he looked at me and said "now what fool? Is that all you got?". You know I couldn't back down from the challenge so you know what I did right? Of course I yelled for Melissa. She did not come, I think she was watching Lifetime or something. Well I couldn't let him take over 2.0's bathroom. So I grabbed....Lysol. Yep Lysol, it kills germs so why not a spider. I sprayed spider boy with the fresh scent of the outdoors. As I sprayed the little eight legged freak he started to shrivel up. So I sprayed more to ensure the end of his existence. He was then flushed. That was a big step for me in facing my fears. Fast forward to last week and there was another freakin' spider (not as big) in the hallway. My first reaction was run, yell, and call for Melissa but I didn't. I took off my shoe and beat him down. I'm talkin' teeth, hair, eyes and legs everywhere. I faced the fear and laid the smackdown on it. Now I am not over my arachnophobia by far but I am making steps. I am becoming more fearless of spiders and with that comes more confidence. If I am going to ask the kids in EDGE to face their fears I must face mine and practice what I preach.