“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”
- 1 John 4:18a
A friend of mine with older kids, one of whom is walking through a really hard season, just told me, “I realized this year that so much of the way I have parented my children has come out of fear, and fearing for someone is NOT the same thing as loving them.” She then explained that when fear drives her actions toward her children, she is more concerned with fixing or changing them to prevent certain pain that might come in the wake of bad decisions they are making. This is not to say that discipline or speaking the truth is never necessary, but she explained that when she can show up to those conversations from a place of LOVE and not fear, the atmosphere changes. Fear is a powerful force and motivates so many of our actions, but LOVE is a force that is far more powerful than fear. Thankfully, when I get in the presence of God’s love, I’m reminded that He is with me through every fearful and painful moment, and that because of Jesus, the pain and the fear never get to have the final word. The grave is empty. Love wins in the end, and knowing this gives me courage to move forward in love.
We are living in world that largely counts on motivating people out of fear. I want to fight this with everything I’ve got, and move forward in the truth and love. I can get overwhelmed with all the conflict in our country right now, with the amount of work we have to do to unlearn the fear-based notions about race that have been subtly woven into the fabric of our society. I get overwhelmed and fearful about speaking the truth about the pain this has caused people of color over hundreds of years. I fear you’ll tune me out if I talk about it too much, but I’m learning that LOVE doesn’t let fear take the wheel. It moves steadily forward into the darkness. It always protects. Always trusts. Always hopes. Always perseveres. Lord, help me to drive out fear with Your love… in my own life and in the world around me.
I’ll close today with this beautiful quote from Brene’ Brown.
“The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It’s our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.”
-Brene’ Brown
