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Health & Fitness

Be Afraid ... Be Very Afraid.

What are you afraid of? In honor of Halloween, please enjoy a story of the weirdest fear you've ever encountered.

How many of you reading this would admit to having any irrational fears?  Any Phobias?  Anything that you’re afraid of that when you logically think about it just doesn’t make a lot of sense?   I know a lot of people with common fears of spiders, snakes, heights and crowds.

I have an irrational fear of bees… really any flying insect with a stinger; hornets, yellow jackets, wasps.  I’ve never been stung by a bee or anything, by the way, because every time I see one I freak out and run away, looking like an idiot.  I remember a couple of years ago I was just talking with some friends at dinner about bees and yellow jackets, and just talking about it freaked me out so much, that my phone was in my pocket on vibrate, and as we were talking someone called me… I felt a buzz in my pocket, and I jerked out of my seat, almost knocked over the whole table.  I’m really afraid of bees. 

Now, I can live with this fear, and I don’t believe I’m going to suddenly change at this point in life.  But I met one person once who made me appreciate that it could be much, much worse. 

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I once married a woman who had this very strange, irrational fear.  On her wedding day, as she was about to come down the aisle to her husband-to-be, and she just started sobbing, crying uncontrollably.  This went on for about 5 to 10 minutes, and so I left the stage, told our pianist to keep playing, and I went back to see what’s going on. 

She’s crying and I ask if she’s having second thoughts, if everything is okay…and between sobs she insists that everything is fine, she’s going to be okay.  So I go back up front and have our pianist hit it again, the cue for her to come down.  And again, nothing.

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So I wait for about another ten minutes, as our piano player is growing calloused on all her fingers, and I go back again, to talk to her, again.  I asked her point blank, “Do you want to get married today or not?”  And I assured her that if she didn’t want to get married she didn’t have to.  And that’s when she finally shared with me what was going on.  “I’m so sorry, I thought I would be okay…”  And then she confessed to the weirdest fear I’ve ever heard.

Wait for it...

“I’m afraid of organ music.” 

Organ music! 

I like to think that God gives special grace to ministers when people confess really stupid things to us, and that he gives our faces power to look empathetic when inside we are thinking “wow, that’s really stupid.”  I just hope this was one of those times.  (By the way, her fear started when she was a little kid and an organ was played at a funeral she was at. Crazy, right?)

Long story short, we killed the piano, she came down the aisle, and they’re still living happily ever after in a piano-free environment.  (Actually, in Florida.) 

So what are you afraid of?  Feel free to leave a comment, either of your fears or a strange fear someone else has.  Happy Halloween!

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