In 2019’s Addams Family, we see Morticia Addams dealing with something unexpected… Fear. That’s right, Morticia Addams, the woman who lives in a world of fright, deals with some real fears in this film. So what can we learn from her experience? How do we deal with fear? Join us as Celeste talks us through this question.
Written Devotional
In the 2019 version of the Adams family, we see Pugsley and Wednesday coming into their own. They are becoming their own people and maybe being slightly different from their parents. Today we will discuss Morticia and her reaction to Wednesday’s wanting to differentiate herself and how to deal with fear.
While the movie does focus on Wednesday and Pugsley discovering who they are as individuals, it also contains a side story about Morticia dealing with fear. Wednesday is starting to do odd things that seem to pull her away from the family. Part of this fear comes from the fear that angry villagers chased her and Gomez from every village they lived in. She didn’t want her children to experience that fear. She wanted to create a place where they could be themselves, but that fear kept her from doing things that she might have enjoyed and kept Wednesday from experiencing things she might have liked that were slightly different from what Morticia thought about.
Fear is a real thing, and sometimes it is a healthy fear. In Morticia’s case, fearing the people of the pitchforks was pretty normal. This is an okay thing. It is okay to be scared if someone is coming at you, but she took it too far. She never dealt with the fear.
Now, I do want to preface all of this. If you have fear in your life or anxiety that is of a medical level, see somebody for help. Get some help. Talk to somebody. Even if your fear is not that bad, sometimes just talking about it with others can help it be less scary, help you understand, and help you step back and go, “You know, this is not logical. It’s not okay to be this scared.”
Our bodies go into this fight or flight mode, and sometimes that’s where we stay, and it’s not healthy to have all those fight or flight things happening in your body. So, Please talk to somebody. In 2 Timothy, we read:
For God gave us a spirit, not a fear, but of power, love, and self-control.
2 Timothy 1:7 (English Standard Version | ESV)
The self-control portion is what gets me. Some versions say a sound mind, but the English Standard Version says self-control. And it made me think about the fact that we control how we respond to our fears. We don’t necessarily have control over what scares us. We don’t understand the psychological things that happen when terror is involved, but we control how we respond.
Morticia controlled how she responded to her fear. She reacted at the beginning in a way that would seem normal, but by the end of the movie, she realized that she needed to control herself. She needed to take control of her reactions, and as a result, she made friends with some people she maybe wouldn’t have made friends with.
Her daughter was more okay with her being in her life. Controlling her reactions made it so much easier for herself and those around her. Self-control is a fruit of the spirit people don’t like to talk about because it’s sometimes hard. It’s just hard. And again, I am not faulting anybody for that instant reaction.
After you get past the instant reaction, this comes into play. I have a friend who is terrified of clowns. I’m sure he would love to punch them every time he saw one, but he doesn’t. He goes, “Mm, not for me,” and he avoids them. Dallas and I are, are scared of spiders again, not quite the same level, but we are scared of spiders. Does that mean I want to burn my house down every time I see a spider?
Yes. Yes, it does. Burn down, burn it all to the ground.
Do I do that? No, I kill the thing or just pray because it disappeared. That happens, and then I move on. I move past my fear. I acknowledge it, then I go past it and use my self-control to do what needs to be done.
Now spiders may not seem to be that big of a thing. In the grand scheme of things, there are many things that are scarier than spiders. Maybe you’re scared of being around people. Maybe you have terrible social anxiety. Maybe you don’t like talking in front of people. That’s all okay. The thing that you have to keep in mind is that you have to control your reactions. Now, if you don’t like being around people or being in big groups, either avoid it and then miss out on some great opportunities to meet people you would enjoy being around. Work on controlling it. Work on getting to where you can be with your fear, acknowledge it, and move past it.
That’s the self-control part of the verse. That is the part that makes you say, “Okay, this is my responsibility.” The Bible says God gave us power and love, meaning we can do this through God. We have His love in us. We have the power that He gives us. So we just have to utilize that for self-control to conquer our fears.