Spirit of fear

This is dedicated to a sweet friend. She knows who she is. This post is a result of lengthy conversations we have had on this subject. 

When death comes for a person, your person, your person you cannot live without, it changes everything. Everything. Who you are at your core is not who you were. It takes time to figure out this new person you are, and I am still in the middle of that unpleasant exploration.
One aspect of surviving a loss that the vast majority grievers experience is this awareness of the reality of death. It doesn't just happen to other people. It happens to you. It happened to you once and now you know how easily it could happen to you again. It's a hyperawareness that does not reflect reality, but does reflect the reality inside a griever's brain. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Harry asks Dumbledore, "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?" Dumbledore replies, "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that is is not real?" In the book, and in life, this is meant to be a reassuring statement of otherwordly experiences. But it's also true in grief. What is happening in my head and my friend's head in the swirling rapids of grief is very real. It is also very terrifying. It can lead to the dreaded "spirit of fear". (Please read that in a sarcasm font.)
If you have spent more than ten minutes with a group of American Christians, you will be familiar with the phrase "spirit of fear". A spirit of fear is when you have fears about certain things or many things, and it is generally believed that you are just holding onto that fear for no good reason and not "giving it to God". My real and only beef with the "spirit of fear" is that it is viewed and judged as one of the worst sins, something the person in question has invented and refuses to let go of.
So my friend has a spirit of fear, so I have a spirit of fear, so freaking what? Some people have a spirit of lust or greed. Some people have a spirit of anger. Some people have a spirit deceit. But heaven forbid anyone have a spirit of fear, that must mean they aren't a true believer. Who decided that a spirit of fear is the absolute worst attribute?
What is someone supposed to do about a spirit of fear anyway? My friend prays about it. And then she prays about it again. And then she prays about it again. But I guess she must not be praying right or not really believing she can be healed from her fear, otherwise that would have happened by now. (Again, that last sentence was sarcasm.) These are the things she is told.
You know, I've seen about 85,000 times on the internet that in the bible it says, "Do not be afraid" 365 times, once for each day of the year. So that must mean that we're really not supposed to be afraid (sarcasm). I have not checked to see if this is accurate and I care 0% how many times it says to not be afraid in the bible. I mostly find it irrelevant because I suspect in the original Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic texts it is likely a slightly different number due to the translations, and translations of translations, etc. But since it tells us or specifically a person in the bible to not be afraid or to have no fear so many times, I actually think that speaks to how human it is to have fear. To how real fear is. If God's gotta say it that many times, it must be pretty common to be afraid. It must be a human reaction to trauma and life experiences.
And what do you know? All these thousands of years later we're still just humans having human experiences. We still experience the weird, the horrifying, and the unknown. And we still react with fear. And God still tells us to not be afraid. And for some people it's still a struggle. I suspect it is for way more folks than will admit it.

I listened to a pastor speak once and even though she had been through some pretty rough stuff, she said that her faith was a gift from God, that she doesn't struggle with belief. I found this to be a beautiful acknowledgment of our differing spiritual experiences as humans. She did not claim that she had a great faith because she's a great believer or she just has this whole Christianity thing figured out. She said it was a gift she had been given. It makes me think of my friend who has the [dreaded] spirit of fear. She has not been gifted with peace in faith. It's a struggle. And God love her, she keeps wrestling. But she has been gifted with compassion, love, justice, caretaking, perseverance, and a great sense of humor to name a few of her gifts. I wish instead of directly or indirectly calling her out for her "spirit of fear", people would be inspired that she's not giving up, that she has so many gifts the world needs and she offers them to her corner of the world everyday.