Rumbling Stumbling Bumbling

I am a huge sports fan, love ESPN and Chris Bermans catchphrase i used as my post title. I find it quite apropos for how life gets lived, at least in my case. The cliche, *a friend is someone who knows all about you and loves you anyway* certainly applies to God and Jesus, only on a much grander scale. No friend knows everything about you, not humanly possible. God and Jesus know ALL!!!! How many wondered about good ole St Nick when hearing that lyric, *he sees you when your sleeping, he knows when your awake, he knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake!* Kinda makes you wanna put a blindfold on jolly santa doesn't it??? LOL

My struggle with fear has had so many dimensions to it. Part of me has felt like fear has been a punishment which will not leave me because i did not deal with it properly when i was young. Part of me thinks its a test to see how much faith and obedience i have and will I be like Job whatever may come my way. It is a very weird paradox because the times when fear attacks and has me in its grip, ot feels like the most terrifying thing, just the feeling of dread and the thoughts of what possibly could happen. My imagination has actually caused more fear than genuine events themselves. When i had pneumonia, a kidney stone, a stent put in a coronary artery and a cardioversion to jumpstart my heart back to normal rhythm, i handled all pretty well and just sought to give it all to God. When my mind roams free to imagine who knows what, all hell breaks loose fear-wise, just a good word picture to describe how it feels inside.

Reconciling the fact i still fear with accepting God not only knows but embraces me and loves me with no reservation and no impatient silent consternation wanting me to get over it and be 100% filled with faith and obedience. I need to lighten up here lol. When i take a pause and look at my own attempts to perfect myself in some idea/image i have inside of what that look/feels like, I can see i am operating from a more OT law style mindset, as opposed to NT grace one. God disciplines always out of love, i need this reality to fill me to overflowing anytime my obessive/compulsive struggle with fear rears its head. Hope to hear from any on your thoughts about it all.