A few weeks ago I was crossing the road with my friend, I didn’t know when I started shouting “please hold my hand”.

She was puzzled and told me to calm down that she was watching too. I didn’t doubt anything of what she said, it was when we got to the other side of the road and I released a deep breath that I didn’t even realise I was holding that She started to probe me about why I get so apprehensive crossing roads cause we go out often together, so she had noticed. I didn’t have an answer immediately but as we continued to the store we were off to, I had a flash in my mind that fit all the puzzles together.

I shared an experience I had with her when I was a few weeks over ten years old, I took a walk on our street (which my parents had warned me against) and my younger brother who was eight insisted on tagging along, despite my adamant refusal, he resisted and in a few moments he was outside the gate with me and we were walking.

A few minutes in, we got to a cross road and I remember asking him severally to hold my hand to cross over but he wouldn’t oblige and in a flash of light, he launched into the road and all I remember was him on the floor, after colliding with a moving vehicle.

As old as I am now, I remember that scene vividly. I was too scared to even go to where he lay, I stood pinned where I was and all I could think was “I’ve killed my brother”.

In a few minutes, when the driver and a few people had alert me with their shouts and noise, I became unfrozen and ran to the scene.

Thankfully, nothing, and I mean, not even a scratch was on him despite the impact. So I ignored everyone, fought my way through the little crowd that had built and went directly to his side where he was now standing, snatched his hand and started to walk home, ignoring the drivers plea to get into his car to go to a hospital, and the noise of the crowd to check he was fully fine.

I got home to my mother right at the front door, she saw him and panicked, he obviously looked disheveled and I was still in a mini shock. She launched towards him and before I could even speak, my brother opened his mouth and confessed a vehicle had hit him.

As I expected, she turned to me, shouted about how she had warned me not to leave the gate but I rebelled and didn’t do so alone, carried my brother along. (I grew up in a house where the oldest person present took whatever blame no matter how uninvolved you were).

I was honestly just glad he was fine, after my mum took him in, undressed him and checked him fully, she confirmed he was good. Over the next couple of days we observed him for any kind of change in his body. All was well.

This experience was the source of the anxiety I might get each time I wanted to cross the road with someone. I feel like I’m ten again and I suddenly feel responsible for the person next to me, to ensure they get to the other side fine.

I’m glad I became aware of it, now I’m fighting it off because I wasn’t spiritually built to handle anxiety, I was built to cast all my cares, worries and past events on God and operate in the rest He has availed to me, so that’s what I’ve been doing these days. No experience from the past is permitted to hold me to a fear in my present.

I know it’s not just applicable to me. Maybe there’s been negative events in your past that have made you a certain way in the present. Maybe like me, you need to confront the event head on and free yourself totally from what has kept you bound.

Abba says to bring it all to Him. That it happened before, doesn’t mean it’ll happen again and maybe you can try again; take the walk, but this time, without fear.