I am chatting with my old college friend on the phone. As always, the names are changed to protect the innocent. I will call her ‘Dear Abby.’

Abby should have been a counselor. Who am I kidding? She is – she’s just the volunteer version. She’s loving, funny and open and as her husband jokes, “you could call her life story Abby.”

It’s a fairly even distribution of her spilling her secrets to those she meets spilling theirs.

Abby can tell I am happy again. And I am!

I tell her that I am not as afraid as I once was.

“Fear equals no God,” says Abby.

Of course, we know this intellectually and spiritually, but I have never heard it so succinctly before. So dramatic that it is unforgettable.

“I know,” I say. “It was just hard to not be afraid to start over and there’s been the stress of this neverending divorce.”

After all, it’s not like most people are starting over at this age in life.

I think if it was easier and not as scary a lot of people would attempt it. A lot of what I call the ‘half-happy’s.’ The people who have convinced themselves the grass is never greener, that a lot of spouses aren’t great to one another and so on.

Abby is right. Fear does equal no God.

I know. I lived with a type of fear I have never experienced in my life. I lived with a panic of not knowing what divorce game would come next. During that time I swore I had faith, but I had really given into fear. I had given into the bully.

Fortunately, I found my way back.

We all get lost and during that time – fear equals no God.

Life is a complicated path; fortunately, when we do find our way back home – God equals no fear.

And we are reminded that giving into that fear is fighting our purpose.

(Photo courtesy of Pexels)

Follow me on Facebook @Colleen Orme National Columnist
on Twitter @colleenorme
on Pinterest @colleensheehyorme
E-mail: Colleen.Sheehy.Orme@gmail.com
www.colleensheehyorme.com