I had an amazing childhood. I had a fun older brother, and at the age of 11 I received the gift of a baby brother. We had parents who were married, worked hard, and showed us tremendous amounts of love and support. They gave us stability. We lacked for nothing. We had an extended family who loved us like crazy. We took vacations. We had big birthday parties. We attended decent schools. We lived in a picture perfect middle class neighborhood full of neighbors who cared for and kept an eye on all of the kids. I was a good kid. And I was surrounded with other good kids who I called my friends and still do today. My family attended church every week. I believed in Jesus.

I didn’t need rose colored glasses because I lived in a rose colored world. In a city called Roseville. On a street called Rosegarden. You can’t make this up.

Throughout junior high and high school I was very involved in youth programs at my church. I often stayed later on Sundays to practice music, rehearse dramas, or work on other creative projects with friends.

On the evening of Febuary 6th of my sophomore year of high school, my brother, Kris, came to pick me up from church and bring me home. He rolled up in his 1980’s Dodge Ram Charger and I hopped in, setting my Bible and a stack of music books on my lap. I don’t recall exactly what we were listening to, but it was something loud. Kris always had some bumping sound system to show off.

With the music blaring and only three blocks from home, we heard a few loud pops and then glass shatter. Kris slammed on the brakes. I looked to my left where the noise had come from and saw that Kris’s window was gone. It didn’t take too long to register what had happened. I started to scream, “Are you OK?!! Are you OK?!” It was very dark, but I could see his silhouette and just enough of his face from the glow of a streetlight. He looked confused, but was repeating that he was OK. I then noticed something wet and started to frantically ask, “What’s wet?! What’s wet?! There’s something wet everywhere!!” He quickly turned on the interior dome light and we saw blood everywhere. Kris noticed a Mustang speeding away from us, then he hit the gas and sped home. As soon as he threw his foot on that accelerator I noticed the blood pouring out of my hand like the old faithful geyser. It covered the seats, the floor, the center console, the dashboard. My hand had been resting on top of my Bible and I had been shot. Not only had I been shot, but I had been shot in a drive-by shooting. My adrenaline sky-rocketed. I felt no pain. All I could think about was how thankful I was that my brother was OK.

He raced us home and my mom called 911. I recall waiting for EMS, sitting at our dining table with a bath towel wrapped around my hand. The ambulance rushed me to the hospital where scans and x-rays confirmed that I had a bullet still lodged inside of my hand. The next day, the bullet was strategically removed by a very skilled surgeon.

Those couple of days were a whirlwind of hospital visits and talking to police detectives. We hadn’t realized how much gang activity from the city of Detroit was overflowing into the neighborhoods around our church and even in our own city. We were only three blocks from home during the shooting, but it was the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time. My injury wasn’t life threatening, but it was life altering.

My perfect little rose-colored world shattered with that window on February 6. And I was afraid.

I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t want to go to school, and I didn’t want my family to leave the house. I was Fear embodied in a 15 year old girl.

Knowing how fear had settled into my spirit, my mom came into my bedroom to talk and pray with me one night. Carrying a small pink box, she opened it, pulled out a small New Testament given to my parents when they dedicated me to Jesus as a baby, and read this scripture to me:

“For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.”

2 Timothy 1:7

She told me that God did not want for me to be afraid, but rather He wanted me to be bold, to love, and to stay focused.

I immediately understood that life-halting fear comes from a dark place, not from God. (As a matter of fact, what happened to me came from that place of fear. Gang members shooting at each other, afraid for their lives, inveigled by that dark spirit of fear.) Mom prayed that the spirit of fear would leave me and that a spirit of love, courage, fearlessness, and hope would take over.

I slept that night. And mom’s prayers were answered in big and small ways in the days, months, and years that followed. What this prayer meant for my life, for my experiences to come, I would never imagine.

The gratitude that I have for God allowing me to experience such fear at 15 is inexplicable, but that’s how God works. He allowed me to see the brokenness and feel the hopelessness that fear stirs up. He allowed my rosy world to fade, but along with all of that came something else. He gave me a great compassion for anyone living in fear. Victims of fear have different faces. They are the innocent . . . . and they are the broken.

I could (and will) share countless stories of God’s spirit of fearlessness and boldness exercised throughout my life. A friend once told me that she wished she could carry a “pocket-sized-Darla” around with her whenever she needed a boost of courage. And then at dinner just this past weekend, while discussing the craziness of our life in Detroit (robberies, thefts, and scandals oh my!), another friend expressed how she couldn’t comprehend my lack of fear and how I always seem hopeful. My response to my friends and similar sentiments from others over the years has remained the same. Every ounce of courage I hold is God’s spirit alive within me. And that has been my story to share in all of this.

To be transparent, there have been times where I’ve forgotten, or even refused, to lean into that audacious spirit and my life reflected the results of my lack of faith. But God always found ways – sometimes rather dramatically – to help me recall who I am and who He is.

Now living in the city of Detroit, I see and hear stories of a despondent people every day. Just beneath the glitzy, re-lit skyscrapers and outside the small pocket of economic and cultural expansion, there are neighborhoods lacking opportunity and filled with hopelessness. Fear settled in and made its home here a long time ago and it still rules the land. My husband and I have suffered at the hand of fear over the past two years here, but there is Hope. I see it. I see it in friends and community members who glow with that same spirit of fearlessness that God has fostered in me. And I believe that I will see Hope rise above fear here in my lifetime. I don’t know how long I will live here – maybe just a few more months, or maybe the rest of my life – but for however long, I pray to be a light of Hope in the darkness that fear has devised. I want my life experiences to tell the story of God’s power over fear. And not just here, but wherever I am.

“You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.”

2 Corinthians 4:5-9

We are “fragile jars of clay.” Though I’d like to think I’m one freaking tough chick, that jar of clay – a brittle and easily broken substance – is me. But God sees and uses those cracks. For the treasure we hold is His light at work, shining through every crack. God at work in and through the broken experiences of my life is such a beautiful and humbling thought. My heart holds tight to this treasure.

So today, on the anniversary of the February 6 shooting, I pray that any courage in me reflects a life of hope in Jesus. I pray that my life choices reflect hope and not fear. And I pray that God continues to use me as a beacon of courage and a torch-bearer of His fearlessness. 

Rather than letting the fear from one night define my life, I have chosen to define it.

In honor of February 6, I ask anyone reading this to simply make someone smile today.  Give hope to someone with the simplest act of kindness. We all have the power to respond to (in)humanity with LOVE. And I don’t know of any force more powerful to conquer fear.

With love,

Darla

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Give a listen to this powerful song and be encouraged:

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