Love Casteth Out Fear

"Love, and fear. If you would be persuasive, to yourself and to others, you must first love, and not fear."

I borrow this phrase from a dear friend's most recent post at their blog because, of the entire post and the entire series to which this particular post belongs, this one speaks to my heart.

As I have said earlier in this blog, I am currently in the midst of learning who I am. And recently I have begun to accept who that person is. The difficulty with this it requires me to accept, and even love, the person God has made me: I need to love this feminine boy, knowing that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. My gut instinct is that it would be so much easier to love me if I were someone else, that is, if I could be what we call normal and love, in someone else, this same otherness I am currently experiencing. And yet I know that to do so is prideful, so perhaps it is appropriate that I should be faced with this challenge.

A challenge is exactly what it is, and it is a challenge that I believe most of us, if not all of us, must face. We must all learn how to love ourselves. This was, before my revelation, a challenge for me. In these days after it, it is both far harder and easier. Easier because I am no longer attempting to fit myself to a model that I just do not fit. Harder because my simple model has been removed and what it has been replaced with is contrary to what many people very dear to me believe is right.

Here we return to the opening quote. One of my big fears is that my family may learn about me and reject me. More than that, I fear their disappointment, that they will feel like they failed, that they will fear for my soul (more than they already do, what with me being Catholic). Part of what moves that fear is a deeper fear that they may be right and instead of loving who I am, I should hate what is evil and love what is good. But to hate what I have been raised to call evil is to hate the person I have seen myself to be. And so I fear myself.

But at the same time, the psalmist calls me to praise the Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. God can make nothing evil, and by this I know in reason that I must choose to love this feminine boy. Only when we are moved by love of God can we truly live. Only then can we be persuasive to ourselves. Until we are ourselves persuaded, we will never persuade others.

When we are moved by fear, we sink into the waves. We feel ourselves about to drown and we cannot help but believe we deserve it, because it confirms our fears. Others see us and we confirm their prejudices. However, when we are moved by love of God, we care not for the waves which crash around us, because our eyes are fixed on the Christ. We witness to His grace by knowing that He has made us and loves us, regardless of how battered and torn and ugly we appear to ourselves, and acting accordingly. We honour God by honouring those over us and by truly loving His creation which necessarily reflects His goodness.

And so, even though I may fear disappointing my family, even though I may fear that I may have misunderstood who God has made me, I know that I must look first to the love of God. I must first love God, and to do this, I must love that which He has made, including myself. When I am moved by love of God, and not by fear, then I will be persuasive to myself, and possibly even to the others whom I am currently tempted to fear.