To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.
SIR FRANCIS BACON
Willie the dog has a phobia. It’s not your normal doggie fear. He doesn’t dread loud sounds or vet visits. He doesn’t cringe when he’s left home alone. No, this 60-pound Hungarian vizsla is overcome with terror by the sight of a human hand holding a dreaded toenail clipper.
He’s been this way since my cousin Elly first adopted him at the age of 12 weeks. This was family number two for Willie. His first adoption was on September 11, 2001—really. To top it off, his breeder lived about five miles from the Pennsylvania site where one of the hijacked planes went down. It is tempting to think 9/11 might have played into Willie’s oddball fear…but it isn’t likely.
Willie wound up with Elly because his first family wanted to return him when they learned he had only one testicle. His breeder wouldn’t take him back, and Willie landed in vizsla rescue. Elly and her husband, Jim, had recently lost both their own vizslas—one to old age, the other to illness. Someone called and told them about Willie. They grabbed him.
Willie’s new humans noticed his toenail-clipping phobia right away. They speculate it was triggered by some puppyhood trauma. Elly recalls that his dewclaws weren’t well clipped. But those were on his front feet, and his back feet are his major Achilles heel.
Elly told me Willie is extremely protective of his feet. He doesn’t like them touched—especially his back ones. If she tries, he will tuck them under so she can’t get to them. If you have a toenail clipper in your hand, his fear skyrockets. If he can, he launches through the doggie door and flees to the yard. If he’s on a table to be groomed, he tries to throw himself off. He won’t ever attempt to bite the hand that tries to clip his nails, but he’ll do almost anything else to get away. Elly’s main fear is that one day he’ll hurt himself in his frantic struggles to escape.
Elly and Jim can’t ask Willie why toenail-clipping makes him go berserk. But in the ten years they’ve had him, they’ve tried everything else. They’ve bought various kinds of clippers. They’ve tried an alternate nail-clipping tool. They’ve left clippers around the house so their dog would get used to seeing them. He could handle clippers on a stand, but not in a hand. He’d even go ballistic if those clippers were being used on his doggie sister, Bonnie.
Finally, Elly threw in the towel and decided to let her vet’s techs trim Willie’s toenails. Last time, it took two of them. One distracted Willie and fed him cookies while the other lifted one foot at a time and somehow managed the deed. Not clipping Willie’s nails isn’t an option because if they get too long, Willie might slip on Elly’s hardwood floors. But she’s already planning to have his nails done when his teeth are cleaned. He’ll be put under anesthesia for the dental work, and he’ll never know his toenails were part of the package.
Willie’s persistent toenail-clipping phobia got me thinking about my own fears—specifically my fear of death. Like Willie, I’ve had this fear since I was very young. I can remember being about four years of age and dreading turning five, because I was a year closer to dying. Now that I’ve come to faith in Christ, I have the promise of eternal life to temper that fear—but I can’t say it’s gone. One of the ways it expresses itself these days is through another fear. I’m scared to be put completely out with anesthesia—because I might not wake up.
I’m at an age where my doctor would like me to get a colonoscopy. I’ve put it off partly due to this concern. When I had tooth implant surgery, I opted for a type of sedation that let me remain partially awake. When I faced arthroscopic knee surgery earlier this year, I wanted to do the same thing—but God had other plans.
I was told I could be awake for the surgery itself and watch. What I wasn’t clear about until I was lying in the surgery center was that I would be knocked out initially. My anesthesiologist warned me I would not want to be awake when they gave me the shot to numb my knee. Hmm…virtually certain major pain versus phobia about highly unlikely death? I didn’t insist.
Still, I was extremely scared. It didn’t help when I heard the anesthesia they were using was the same drug that had gone so wrong with Michael Jackson. My anesthesiologist assured me it was excellent when used correctly. It would put me out instantly and I would awake as soon as it was stopped. My surgeon came in and got me laughing, and that helped. I’m not sure exactly when I went under. Next thing I knew, I was conscious and my surgeon was showing me the inside of my knee on a screen.
I’d been told if I felt pain during the procedure, I could say so and be put to sleep again. I doubted I’d want it that way. I was wrong. I started hurting. I said so—twice. When I “came to” again, the procedure was over. And my long-standing anesthesia phobia, though not gone, was greatly lessened.
Willie’s a dog. Elly can’t sit down and reason with him. She can’t talk him down from his trauma, or even find out what it was. But I’m a human. I have reasoning powers. And I have a loving God who has given me a whole host of His promises. Even so, I hung onto my fear. But instead of being angry or disgusted, God met me with understanding and love and gently worked me through it.
I wonder if Joshua had cold feet when he had to step into Moses’s shoes and lead the Israelites into Canaan. We can’t know—but we do know God kept reassuring him. In the first chapter of Joshua, God urges him to be strong and courageous three times in four verses. I don’t think biblical courage means the absence of fear—I think it means being willing to obey God regardless. I believe God understands our fears and is waiting to graciously free us from them step by step if we will put our trust in Him.
Willie trusts Elly as much as he can, and her love covers the rest. God will lovingly work with us too, if we ask Him. No matter how great your fears may be, you can entrust them—and yourself—to a caring God who is bigger!
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me (Psalm 23:4).
What are your greatest fears in life? Where did those fears come from? How have you tucked your toes or fled through the doggie door to escape what scares you? How might God be calling you to be strong and courageous instead? What Scriptures might encourage you in this?