fear = hurt

my dear friend lyds posted a link to a blog the other day that she said "is long but worth the read." and because i like lydia i decided to read it. that and nothing else was pulling on my skirt at the time. what this lady had to say about christianity/homosexuality/love/fear/her family was incredibly interesting to me. if you get the chance to read it, you should (http://oork.com/kv5m3). but something that really got to me was this statement: '... people hurt the things they fear.'

this urged me to do some reflecting on the things that i have feared in the past, things that i fear right now, and things that i'm afraid i'll fear in the future (did you follow that?).

ironically, nearly all of the categories of fear (past, present, and future) have a common thread: unfinished business. in the past, my fear has consisted of worry over not getting to participate in things that i felt like every person should get to participate in. when i was fourteen or fifteen, i was sure i'd die before i got my license. and when i was sixteen, even though i didn't really care about having a boyfriend, i thought surely i would die before that happened. now i have my license, and i've had a boyfriend before so neither of those are really fears anymore...

now, i fear that i will never make myself really proud. i fear that i think i'm a better writer than i am - or that i'm funnier than i am. i fear that i will never get married. and i wouldn't say that this is an "every day i worry and i only workout because of the potential threat NOT working out could have on me finding a suitable husband" kind of fear - but to anyone who would love to have a best friend to spend the rest of their life with and kids and yada yada yada, not getting married is kind of scary. i don't want to be the spinster aunt who spends all my money on the nieces and nephews because i can't have kids of my own.

and this all lead me to question what i have hurt because of these fears. not really what, as much as who. who have i scared off, ditched, or ran away from because of the fears that i choose to make apart of who i am?

about a year ago, one of my brothers kind of unloaded a gigantic suitcase of pain that i had thrown in his direction over the past years and at the time, some that was very recently unleashed. about a year ago, i was in emotional agony. i was hurt by someone who promised to never leave. foolish of me to believe that promise, but believe it i did and it wound up putting me in a desert land for too long. i apologized to my brother and although i wasn't using it as an excuse for my wrongdoing - i couldn't help but think that hurt people hurt people. unfortunately it's just the way we work as humans. and in order to rise above that - i need help. from other people, from God, etc..

first John says that 'perfect love drives out fear'. and graham c. says that there is no fear where God is present. oftentimes i wish i could make the scales perfectly even - with one holding the weight of my human fear and the other holding the weight of love that is infinitely bigger than any anxiety i could ever imagine.