Fear Less, Love More

Some days I zip right by my calendar’s “quote of the day” and think “oh, that’s nice.” Other times, a quote sticks in my head, an ear worm of sorts, and loops back day after day, making me stop and think time and again, often directing my thinking and acting. This one by Eleanor Roosevelt is one of the stickers.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”

The first time I read it, I dreamed of big things I could do to change the world. Why wasn’t I doing those? Starting up a charity. Writing a novel. Building a business. Something grand. Something huge. Something that proves I am fearless.

(Insert sound effect here – screeching brakes.)

Stop. Read it again. Look fear in the face. Do what I cannot do. What is fear? It has been defined as False Evidence Appearing Real. I think it’s the opposite of love. We live in fear. Or we live in love. Living in love requires fearlessness. We let go of our insecurities, our longings, our neediness. We love the other. Note the full stop at the end of that sentence. We love the other. No conditions.

Of course, we can never do this completely, it is a direction rather than a destination. But what a beautiful journey.

How do we begin? First, we accept that we are loved – by our Heavenly Father. Knowing that we are loved unconditionally and drawing upon that Perfect Limitless Love is the only way to move beyond fear. I am loved. I don’t deserve it, but I am. And so is every other human being. Every traveler I meet along the road is worthy of God’s love. Maybe we can’t love him or her – we all have someone in our life who stretches our limits - but God does love that person. So we pray that His Love be the spark that lights our way. And we remember what Paul told us – that we did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but we have received a spirit of adoption. We’ve been adopted by the Creator of the Universe! God says you’re not just a creature, you are my child. Meditating on that thought makes one fearless.

So back to Eleanor. What if the thing which I cannot do today is to love? What if the greatest fear I have is to accept and love that person who irritates me the most? What happens if I let go of judgment and condemnation, accept him/her as is, just as I am accepted? What if I lay down resentment, bitterness, regret, anger? What if all I have left is love?

The beautiful poet Rilke says it much more eloquently:

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”

By God’s grace, we shall do that thing we think we cannot do.  We will do it today.  We will move boldly in the direction of light.  We will love.