Over the Christmas holiday, a wise friar friend suggested that my birthday gift to Jesus could be the “gift” of all my fears and anxieties.

It sounded rather bizarre, but lots of pondering has me thinking he’s right. If we would give God all our fears and anxieties, then God could work through us with great impact. Think of all we could do if we were not afraid.

Now that it is nearly Lent, we could put “fears and anxieties” on the list of things we can give up!

Embracing such an endeavor will be a challenge. It’s much easier to give up those pieces of pie — or even do the no-ketchup Lenten penance I did last year. Food things are nicely concrete and measurable. Most actions — deciding to do a specific something positive each day or each week of Lent — also can be “checked off” our Lenten lists. We know exactly what we’ve decided to do and how to do it.

Giving up a fear is less tangible, and emotional attachments tend to be sticky. Anxieties seem especially rooted in our very being, with some that go back for years. Perhaps we have already tackled debilitating anxieties with professional help. Or perhaps we should be tackling them — and then our Lenten penance could be to take the steps necessary to get that help.

But fears and anxieties don’t have to be at a paralyzing point to impede our spiritual growth. Many times, we experience fear because we are not well-practiced in the act of trusting in God. We don’t quite believe in His love, for us personally.

But we can get past that lack of trust. Lent is all about those kinds of deeper changes.

Lent is a time when God gives extra graces. His assistance helps us keep our Lenten commitments when our given-up pleasures tempt us. So instead of picturing Lent as a time of sacrificial loss, let’s turn our view around this year and see this holy season as a time when God provides extra-abundant graces.

What better time can we find to identify some fear we have and take steps to hand it over to God’s care?

I’m always glad after Lent when I realize that candy (or whatever) has less of a hold on me. How awesome it would be to discover that with God’s help the grip of a bothersome fear loosened up during the Lenten season of grace!

Sounds terrific, but for it to happen we have to set a plan of pre-determined action when the fear swoops in. What to do?

First, decide which one, spiritually-unhealthy fear you would like to give up for Lent (and beyond). Let’s define such a fear as fear that keeps us from welcoming God in the circumstances, good and bad, in our life.

For example, we might become overwhelmed by a fear of death if we learned that we had a terminal illness. Our fear would be legitimate and logical — but it also would be unhealthy because it could hamper our efforts to trust God at a time when He could be of wonderful help.

Perhaps ours is a fear of looking foolish, or smart, or holy, or the fear of a lack of social graces, or beauty, or wealth. Maybe we fear a particular truth. Or fear being a witness to the faith. Perhaps we fear our job is in jeopardy, or fear some suffering we think we can see on the horizon.

Even if what we fear is likely to happen, giving that fear to God, in bits and pieces as best we can, will help us if what we fear comes about.

Once we have identified a fear, the action of handing it to God and entrusting Him to take care of us may need a prop or two.

It helps to recall things that once concerned us that did not happen. It is good to remember and soak up the moments when we noticed that God was at work, making something better than we expected.

A second helpful tool is to choose a Bible verse that tells us how much God loves us. There are plenty in the Bible. One that twice recently was recommended to me is Jeremiah 29, verses 11-13:  “For I know well the plan I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! Plans to give you a future full of hope. When you call me, when you go to pray to me, I will listen to you. When you look for me, you will find me ... .”

Let’s give God our fears. Trusting God can be a great Lenten grace for us in 2014.