Emotional Recession

Have you noticed how many economists use emotional words to describe the current state of our economy? Investors are worried, families are fearful, businesses are anxious, banks are uneasy, the stock market is troubled and the nation is distressed. We even call one of the worst periods of our economic history, “The Great Depression”.

It seems to me that FDR’s rally cry in the midst of that period of history still holds true; “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself”. I’ve learned in my 56 years of life that I can get by without an income, but I can’t live without hope and courage.

My mother and father spent most of 1959 in a hospital. As a result, our family lost everything. House, car, furniture, business….everything but the clothes on our backs. We moved from a home we owned into a $90 a month apartment on the north side of Milwaukee. We furnished that tiny place with used chairs and tables. I slept on an army cot. My mother had a nervous breakdown.

But, the one thing I remember hating, more than anything else, was the palpable fear that things were just going to get worse. I didn’t mind the government issued “Surplus Food”…in fact, I loved the peanut butter. I didn’t mind the small apartment. The old building it was in provided me with hours of entertainment, hiding places and a make-shift pretend fortress in the attic. I didn’t even care that I slept on a used army cot! I could go to sleep at night pretending to be the hero of a thousand battles.

What I despised was that dreaded misery of fear that ultimately lead to my mother’s nervous breakdown. As a little boy, I did everything I could to avoid that feeling, because I instinctively knew that “fear itself” was the real enemy stalking my family.

The most often repeated commandment of the Bible is, “Fear not!”. The will of God for every living creature is to live free of fear. The Bible even predicts the day when, “…the wolf will dwell with the lamb…” (Isaiah 11:6) because God’s intention is for His creation to be fear free!

We will prevail through this economic downturn when we embrace 2 simple words from God; FEAR NOT.