I had a friend whose biggest concern about heaven was that when she got there God would play a movie of all the horrible stuff she had done in her life and she would know the shame of it all. I told her two things, one was that if she had confessed and repented those things were forgiven and forgotten and the second thing was that God wouldn't be watching filth like that.
My greater fear was in the Gospel lesson for today, Mark 6.47-56, the disciples in the boat on the lake. Jesus comes walking to them on the water in the midst of a storm that has them scared out of their wits and now they don't know whether to be scared of the storm or what they take to be an apparition. In the end Jesus calms both the storm and the disciples. What we are also told is that they didn't understand because their hearts were hardened.
I am prepared to be embarrassed by looking back on those times in my life when I felt completely overwhelmed by life's difficulties and like Elijah decided I had had enough and was prepared to quit and it was fine with me if my life ended then. God sometimes allows us to be in the storm in order that He can come and prove Himself, hopefully strengthening our faith and trust so that the next time we will not react with the same fear. Somedays I wonder if I will ever get it right. As John Prine once wrote, "its a half an inch of water and you think you're gonna drown."
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