Kelly Balarie is a blogger and speaker who helps women fight their fears one by one with passion, purpose, and bravery to develop an unstoppable, contagious faith. She sits down with Maggie John to chat about her new book: Fear Fighting: Awakening Courage to Overcome Your Fears.
As a child Kelly Balarie was free. She was always singing and dancing, never caring what people thought about her. However, in later years people would make negative comments and laugh at her. These comments and ridicule caused Kelly to close up and become a shell of the person she was created to be. Fear would live in her skin and be a part of everything that she said or did. Kelly would walk through life and think that everything she did was wrong, and when she was in college she struggled with depression and eating disorders. She thought that everything had to be controlled and carefully guarded so that nothing would happen to her. On a birthday her husband leaned forward and said to her, "I love you so much. When are you going to step past your fear and do the great things that God has planned for you?" Kelly finally realized what tremendous oppression she was under, and through the love of her husband she realized that God's perfect love casts out all fear.
People often live their lives reacting in fear to things that have happened to them or that they imagine will happen to them. Kelly Balarie says in her book that people can condition their mind to respond in fear, but they can also condition their mind to know that God is with them. Their mind shifts from reacting to the world to knowing that they have everything that they need, and then to go into the world and be empowered.
There are many practical tips in Kelly's book to help people recognize their own fear and then conquer it. A big tip in Kelly's book is to "Go to Bed and Praise, then Wake up and Praise." Kelly finds that when she goes to bed praising God she wakes up with a refreshed sense of his goodness to her. Another tip is to "Be still and Quiet Your Mind." Simply quieting your mind to open up and listen to God is a big detractor towards fear because it allows us to quiet all the worrying thoughts in our head and allow God to lead us. A third tip is "Serve Someone in Need." Kelly has found this tip to starve all jealousy, and it helps her to think of others instead of being absorbed in herself. Sometimes this requires her to step into the action of loving someone and then letting the emotions follow. Loving others also fosters God's love inside yourself.
If you would like to have someone pray with you about your own fears, please call our prayer partners. The number is 1 (866) 273-4444, they would be happy to pray with you.
Be sure to pick up a copy of "Fear Fighting" today!