You Called the Wound a Virtue | Valley of Fear

 On Sunday we looked at the patterns fear leaves behind — the walls, the performance, the control. Today we slow down and ask the harder question: where did you give the wound a respectable name? 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Good morning. This is Northword.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

This week we're walking into the valley of fear. And today we start with a question. Why do we keep going back to what hurts us? Good morning. This is Northward, the Word, the North, your week a daily podcast from St. John's Fort Smith, in collaboration with the Anglican family. I'm your host, Father Aaron. I had a friend in college, a really good guy, sweethearted, raised in a hard life, and was a really mature guy really early. And he was in this relationship that was absolutely toxic, painful to everyone around him, painful to him, and yet every few weeks he'd go back to it again and again. For two years we watched this happen. And now looking back, years later, I understand it. That relationship gave him something, something broken, something hurtful, but something familiar. And familiar feels safe, even when it's destroying you. That pattern, going back to what hurts because it's what you know, that's not just a relationship problem, that's a fear problem, and it lives in all of us. Last Sunday we read about a man born blind in the Gospel of John chapter 9. And Jesus says something that cuts right to the heart of it. When his disciples ask, Whose fault is the blindness? Who sinned? Who's being punished? Jesus says, Neither. This isn't about punishment, it's about condition. We're all born into a corrupted world, and that world hands us wounds before we're old enough to choose anything. Born into poverty, you learn scarcity. Born into an unsafe home, you learn to trust no one. Born into shame, you learn to hide. The wound comes in, and then your sinful nature latches on and it keeps feeding it long after the original situation is gone. The poverty is gone, the fear of lack is still running your life. The danger is gone, the walls are still up, the shame is gone, the performance is still going. That's the valley of fear. And the hardest part, most of us don't even know we're in it. We've been there so long it just feels like home. So here's your challenge for today. Name it. Not fix it, just name it. What wound did the corrupted world hand you early on? What fear came with it? You don't have to have the answer. You just have to stop pretending the question doesn't exist. This has been Northword, the Word, the North, your Week, a daily podcast from St. John's Fort Smith in collaboration with the Anglican family. Follow us and share this episode to help reach more and more people with the word of God. And if something is stirring in you right now, hit the text us in the description. We'd love to hear from you. And until tomorrow, God be with you.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Amen.