Give me the medicine, she cried out in anguish, knowing that she would not get better without it. But the moment I laid her down and reached to pull back her eyelid so that I could administer the eyedrops, my 4-year-old daughter covered her eyes with her hands and cried, I’m scared!
I know you’re afraid, I said to her. But you know that you need this medicine, and your knowledge is stronger than your fear.
What I saw in the eyes of my 4-year-old daughter yesterday was a collision of knowledge and fear. She knew that she needed the medicine in order to get better, but she was also afraid that the administration of that medicine would hurt. So she cried out, Give it to me . . . I’m scared!
One of the most fundamental life-skills is the ability to overcome fear by acting upon knowledge. In the infant stage, this lesson is ingrained by force. The moment my daughter was born, she came out screaming . . . in pain, and scared to death! She and I were immediately taken to the nursery, where my daughter received her first shots (which was very painful for me to watch), salve was placed in her eyes, and she received her first bath. She was terrified through the whole ordeal, and protested with fervent cries and tears. The doctors could not allow her cries to stop them. Her life depended on it!
But as a child gets older, the element of choice comes into the picture. Children mature as the learn to choose to act upon their knowledge, rather than their fears. They learn to choose to sit still in the dentist’s chair . . . to allow the doctor to plunge a needle into their arms . . . to allow their mothers to pull out their splinters with a pair of tweezers . . .
We may say that our children do not have a choice in such matters, but in actuality they do. And if we don’t give them a choice . . . if we continue to force them to do things in spite of their fears . . . they will never master their fears, they will never learn to choose knowledge, and they will have to be forced to do things for the rest of their lives.
And in fact, the odds are that if you are reading this post right now, you’ve got at least one area in your life in which your fear is taking authority over your knowledge.
Perhaps you know you need to go see a doctor or a dentist, but you are afraid.
Perhaps you know you need to reach for reconciliation with a family member, but you are afraid.
Perhaps you know you need to pursue a new line of work, but you are afraid.
Most of us have not fully grown out of our childish fears. And it’s not that we need to stop being afraid . . . that’s not realistic at all. We simply need to stop allowing our fear to punk out our knowledge.
Which is more powerful; your knowledge or your fear? That all depends upon you. The stronger of the two is the one you act upon.
