The title of this post is a modification of a Dickens quotation. In the original, the final word is “tears,” but when I look at the quote every morning on the cover of A Charles Dickens Devotional (previously reviewed), the t looks like an f, so I’ve gotten it into my head the wrong way. Anyway, I think both sentiments make sense.
I chose the title because last night I was thinking about my top three greatest fears, particularly my probably irrational fear of getting seriously ill or injured and consequently losing some brain function, leading me to become or appear less intelligent. Sometime I may write a full post about my biggest fears (I’m sure they look pretty silly when written down), but for now I simply want to give you a list of disconnected, but related, quotations and thoughts that have come to me while I’ve been worrying about the fear that I mentioned and pondering the subjects of humility, not holding too tightly to what I value, and not caring so much about what people think of me.
(This list is dedicated to all the Ravenclaws out there and to Hermione Granger, who should have been a Ravenclaw.)
- Wit beyond measure may be man’s greatest treasure, but God’s wisdom makes our wit look like foolishness.
- “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men . . . God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty.” (I Corinthians 1:25, 27)
- “Take my intellect and use / Every power as you choose.” (Frances Ridley Havergal)
- “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:1-2) N.B., Ravenclaws: Luna Lovegood gets this.
Oh, P.S. Perce Shelley, Queen Mab, and I are doing fine now. I no longer want to shoot myself in the eye. Hope you enjoyed the Wordsworth anyway. 🙂
the Dr. Tess blog 
Tess, I have always had a fear (irrational or otherwise) that as a young child I had failed an IQ test, so that I was in literal Dickensian terms an idiot–not the colloquial use of the word for someone who does something startlingly stupid who is otherwise quite mentally capable, but one of such low IQ that he is functionally incapable in society. Part of this fear is that my parents never told me the results of this test, but that I knew it was a fact, so that any appearance to the contrary (that I wasn’t an idiot) was in fact a fraud that was about to be uncovered, and that I must therefore live my life (talk, act, think, work) to disguise my disability. Crazy or dysfunctional as this fear may be, it is a great motivator!
Which come to think, your irrational fear is sort of a branch off of mine.
Oh, that explains an awful lot about both you and me. Huh.
I am glad you wrote this post. All of us have fears (irrational or not) and you are dealing with yours in two healthy ways: writing about them (talking them out works too) and finding Scripture to apply to the fear.