Dealing with Fear

Fear has been my biggest mountain this weekend. As I come up to the first week of Impact 195, I am filled with fear and apprehension. I am a different person without sleep. I'm starting down a journey that will demand more hours of wakefulness and a very limited amount for sleep. For example, I am working right now. I work 7Pm to 7am, will (hopefully) take an hour nap in my car and get up for classes from 9a-1pm, go home to sleep until 1730 (hopefully) and then back at work tomorrow at 7pm. I've never been one to go without sleep. Sleep deprivation has never been a trophy that I have pursued and am not impressed with those who hold it up as some great achievement. I know that God created us to need sleep-it's a physiologic necessity and many studies have proved it. In fact, one of my favorite posts of Keith Drury ( a professor at IWU ) is about sleep... here's the link:

http://www.drurywriting.com/keith/1Sleep.htm

Sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do is sleep. And so I am entering a period of voluntary sleeplessness... and I am afraid of it. Afraid of how I will treat my roommates, my patients, my coworkers, my new friends in this class. Afraid of my health, my attitude, my mental well being...

And then I remember that fear is not of God and "Perfect love casts out all fear". But I have it. So what do I do with it? How do I rectify it? How do I get rid of it? How do I get "perfect love" so that I can get rid of this fear?

I was talking to my sister today before work and she said "Isn't it sort of cool... uncomfortable, but cool that you are completely out of control in this? You have to just trust God and there's not a whole lot more that you can do."

I am definitely not at the point where I can think of it as cool...and trusting is not my strong point, but Katie say's she'll pray... so may God have mercy!