April's Challenge: What are you afraid of?

Before we answer that, let us look into the two synonymous words.

SCARED

As Merriam say, scared means thrown into or being in a state of fear, fright, or panic. This word the closes meaning of  "afraid". While scared means being in the state fear afraid means apprehending or feeling fear. There are interchangeable in most cases. But pertaining to sentence construction, it is observed that the use of "afraid" limited. Example of this when the word is succeeded by the preposition "by"

• The boys was scared by the horror movie.

Its sounds awkward when you say,

• The boys was afraid by the horror movie.

FRIGHTENED

This is synonymous to afraid only that, frightened is used to express sudden reaction. 

• She was frightened by the lightning.

AFRAID

Afraid is originally the past participle of the verb "afray" (Middle English - now obsolete). This came the Aglo-French word "afrayer".

Afraid means feeling fear. A person who is afraid is filled with fear which is not caused by sudden reaction. 

What are you afraid of?

1. When I was a kid, I am afraid of breaking our tableware. A child who is clumsy and a mother who cherish glassware. What a lively combination. Even now, going to department store I feel uncomfortable seeing rows for glassware. 

2. In school years, I was afraid of having a failing grade. I guess this is common for all of us. It is OK to have a low grade but a red mark will endanger our ears! I was afraid that I turn to Mama Mary. Have you seen the image of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help? Every start of the year, I always put a letter addressed to Mama Mary asking for her petition in my studies. I stick that letter the back of the image in my room. That's my secret that I'll gladly share here.

3. Now, I am afraid of experienced rock bottom of life. All these years I've been blessed of not experiencing literal heartbreak (except for my grandma's death) or traumatic experience. Whenever I have problems, there are many help that will come for me. So I am afraid to experience something that I will have to face alone with no one rely on.

The only I do to fight being afraid is prayer. I really hold to the promise of Jesus that He is the King of Mercy and I say with conviction: Jesus, I trust in You. With that I would always shamelessly asked Him not to give me something I could not carry. I even add that it would be much better if it is according to His Will that I will not experience anything to inhuman. And whenever fear is starting to gnaw me, I keep remembering the words of Jesus in the Book of Truth:

"Fear does not come from Me. When you believe in Me and trust Me you will not be fearful, no matter how much evil is presented to you through the sins of mankind.

- Your Beloved Jesus"

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