Thursday, November 26, 2015

There Is No Fear in Love

I was seventeen and headed to college. Eager to decorate my new home, I crafted picture collages with inspirational quotes. I made one with my boyfriend; "There is no fear in love" was written in calligraphy in the center. I was really proud of the calligraphy, as well as the vulnerability the quote represented. My mother, however, saw it and gave me a similar warning to the one she gave when she discovered my ribcage read, "Pass boldly in the full glory of some passion."

"Anna," she cautioned, "sometimes fear is a good thing. And sometimes the answer is not to be bold, but to be still." Ahhh, my propensity to act meets maternal wisdom. Of course, she is right that both fear and stillness are, at times, the appropriate response. More on that later. But for now - love.

At the beginning of the year, I wrote about my desire for a husband (or at the very least, someone to buy me dinner and change my stupid light bulbs). I know, I know, twenty-seven year old men - run! I was upset, not about any guy in particular, but about my life. When I moved to Charlottesville, I came with the expectation that I would find a job I loved or a man I loved - because why else would God have called me to a random place?* It had been over five years, and neither of those had happened. I was tired and a bit confused.

But mostly, I was afraid. I was scared of what God would call me to do next. What if He wanted me to leave? What if He wanted to pluck me from my comfort zone yet again? What if I had to make another major life decision on my own?

The quote adorning my freshmen dorm is 1 John 4:18: "There is no fear in love," but in retrospect, my naive teenage self took it a bit out of context. The second half reads: "But perfect love drives out fear."

There's a lot to fear in this world. Just look at the Sunday paper, the Drudge report, or ESPN - whatever your news source. The future is uncertain and completely out of our control, and embracing that is terrifying. At the beginning of this year, I felt that terror. And then I remembered those so sweet words and their true meaning.

Perfect love is not of this world. I have yet to go on a date in 2015*, but I have felt the perfect love of God in a way that I had yet to experience in my twenty years as a Christian. That love has driven out the fear of an uncertain future. For that, I am extremely thankful.

*More on that later, too.
*Obviously, not because I couldn't get a date.

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