Worries and Tensions

Announcing the debut of The Stained Glass Pickup, Glimpses of God’s Uncommon Wisdom by Cathy Messecar –Leafwood Publishers / ACU Press

Thom Lemmons, co-winner of the 2006 Christy award for Christian fiction King’s Ransom says about Cathy’s new book The Stained Glass Pickup:

"Cathy Messecar finds temples wherever she goes: in a chapel on a university campus, at her children's bedsides, in a church full of rustling Bible pages... or on a bale of hay, in the cab of an eighteen-wheeler, in the aisle of a grocery store. Like a long-ago Teacher walking the dusty roads of Galilee, she can spot the outlines of the sublime camouflaged by the ordinary. Her images will touch your imagination; her words will touch your heart; her visions of eternity will touch your soul."

Order today at http://www.stainedglasspickup.com/ -- a hard back gift book, $10.99 plus S & H, tax if applicable or by mail at P. O. Box 232, Montgomery, TX 77356 or email Cathy at writecat@consolidated.net Outside United States order from http://www.leafwoodpublishers.com/


Fears cast shadows on my childhood. After witnessing a boating accident and near drowning, I became afraid of water. Another fear arose when an Arkansas radio station warned citizens about wild dogs skirting my hometown. My vivid imagination became a curse.

Any Fido became suspect. In my mind, snarling, fang-flashing canines lurked behind each bush on my path to school. After no attacks occurred the six years I trekked to the school, reality became larger than my flight of imagination.

Several years ago, I taught a class on phobias. If fifty people listed all the worries that cause them hand wringing, the varied inventory would have a high tally.

God gave humans the emotion of fear as a protective measure, but unreasonable fears destroy from the inside out. The same day of my Bible class about fears, my husband and I delivered hay to a feed store in Tomball. We finished unloading in the dark, and the hay truck had to be jump started.

The generator had broken and drained the battery of power. That meant no headlights to guide us home. This was an old flatbed cabover truck. A cabover truck engine is beneath the seat of the truck, making the windshield nearly flush with the front bumper. Passengers stare straight down at the pavement from the windshield.

On the winding back roads, my husband turned off the headlights and drove by offset vision, a military technique he’d learned. He looked up at the black tree line against the slightly lighter sky and steered the truck.

He never left the pavement. My clutched hands never left the edge of the seat. Neck muscles tensed like petrified wood. The dark road mesmerized my eyes. Thirty minutes became a year. Horror reigned until we glided safely into our driveway.

Fears flee when trust in God is practiced. “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart” (Isaiah 40:11).
Contemporary lyrics encourage “you raise me up to walk on stormy seas. I am strong when I am on your shoulders. You raise me up to more than I can be.”

Teaching a Bible class about fear is not the same as combating fear. When fears threaten, when tension mount, when generators fail and lights go out, don’t’ focus on the darkness, look up.

You may contact Cathy at http://www.stainedglasspickup.com/