Love can be stunningly beautiful. The absence of love can be heartbreakingly awful. And it takes courage to love. Clearly we are all built for love – to give and to receive love. This is who we are and what we are supposed to do. Our very nature cries to love and to be loved. But beautiful love may be, natural it may be, it is commitment wrought with unknown terror and dread.
We fear because when one truly loves, one offers that which is truly one’s own – one’s self. It is in the simple offering of who we are, and it is here where we are ultimately so afraid. It is an offering that leaves you vulnerable, and weak, because it is an offering that exposes you in the most real way possible. And we are deathly afraid of what might happen, that in our most sincere offering of self, we might get hurt. We might get rejected, or worse ridiculed. We are not sure that what we have is worth having, or loving. We are not sure how to receive a love that is offered to us.
There is a rift that seem impossible to bridge – a dissection between ourselves and loving, and it is a chasm filled with fear—a fear so deep and terrifying that leaves us immobilized, alone, and filled with a loneliness so deep that only the bridging of this gap can ever overcome. For somehow, even when we are fearful, even when we are terrified, we sense this longing to connect – to be committed – to love and be loved.
“Perfect love casts away fear,” the wise beloved apostle once wrote. And it in this wisdom that we find the courage to overcome this fear. Love will cast away our fears. The act of loving may be terrifying, but it is only by loving that we are able to overcome this fear. God who is love, God who first loved us has shown us the way to perfect love. He gave Himself to us, in the midst of pain, and hate, ridicule and dismissal. He chose to love, even if this offer of love might be rejected.
We fear because when one truly loves, one offers that which is truly one’s own – one’s self. It is in the simple offering of who we are, and it is here where we are ultimately so afraid. It is an offering that leaves you vulnerable, and weak, because it is an offering that exposes you in the most real way possible. And we are deathly afraid of what might happen, that in our most sincere offering of self, we might get hurt. We might get rejected, or worse ridiculed. We are not sure that what we have is worth having, or loving. We are not sure how to receive a love that is offered to us.
There is a rift that seem impossible to bridge – a dissection between ourselves and loving, and it is a chasm filled with fear—a fear so deep and terrifying that leaves us immobilized, alone, and filled with a loneliness so deep that only the bridging of this gap can ever overcome. For somehow, even when we are fearful, even when we are terrified, we sense this longing to connect – to be committed – to love and be loved.
“Perfect love casts away fear,” the wise beloved apostle once wrote. And it in this wisdom that we find the courage to overcome this fear. Love will cast away our fears. The act of loving may be terrifying, but it is only by loving that we are able to overcome this fear. God who is love, God who first loved us has shown us the way to perfect love. He gave Himself to us, in the midst of pain, and hate, ridicule and dismissal. He chose to love, even if this offer of love might be rejected.
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