Being fearful is really easy. No one has to tell the little kid what exactly it is that's hiding in the dark that they should be afraid of, they can come up with that all on their own. Fear is easy. And so is hate. It's easy to decide that just because you don't understand someone or because they are different then you, then you should push them away and continue on your own familiar path. That's easy.

Loving someone, that's difficult. To truly put others before yourself, and say that we are in this together, that's not easy. To have true compassion for others is incredibly difficult. To have compassion isn't to just listen to someones worries, fears, and concerns, and give them a pat on the back and say suck it up. To have compassion is to listen to someones worries, fears, and concerns, and to acknowledge them and feel those worries, fears, and concerns with them. To step outside of yourself and your comfort zone, to be uncomfortable, and understand that when one of us hurts, we all hurt. To understand that just ignoring the problem because it doesn't directly affect you, doesn't mean it's not real or will just go away. To love each other, despite our different backgrounds, opinions, and situations, that's incredibly difficult.

This year, we turned the election into a sports game. We knew about the stats, we heard from outside sources and family members, so we picked a team and stuck with it. It didn't matter if our original team was playing or not, we just wanted to be on the side that won. We spent this election season on either Clinton's or Trump's bandwagon just so we could say that we won in the end, and the other team lost. We were so obsessed with being on the winning side, that we never considered about what would happen afterwards.

We chose fear instead of actually finding out what we were supposed to be afraid of. We were told to be afraid of Mexicans, and Muslims, and African-Americans, and liberals, and conservatives, and the left, and the right, and anything and everything. We cast our fears on others, and put the blame on anything and everything but ourselves.

Now I'm not saying that these fears are irrational in anyway. You are entitled to feel that way that you feel and express those concerns and beliefs. These fears that we never fully addressed are very real. Trump still said those things, possibly raped those women, didn't pay those taxes, lost a billion dollars in a year, and much more. Clinton still deleted those emails, defended that rapist in court, said things and then took them back, her husband still cheated on her, and much more. Those things won't change. And early Wednesday morning, Donald Trump was elected as our next President. And we can't change that either. But we can change our way of thinking.

There's a lot of things that we can be afraid of. Spiders, finals, Thanksgiving dinner with our weird relatives, but we shouldn't be afraid of each other.

We all want the same things, we just prioritize them differently. We want to feel smart and valued and successful and safe. That's it. That's all we really want, there's just tons of different ways to get there.

But fear gets us nowhere. So stop being afraid. Listen to each other before you speak. Don't be afraid to have the difficult conversations. Examine yourself and what you believe before you label yourself as this or as that. Stop giving into the idea that just because this is how things have always been, that this is how things always will be. God has created us to be courageous, fearless, and strong. So go and be who God has called us to be.

God has created this world for us to share so that we can grow, learn, and love. So go and grow, learn, and love from each other. Loving someone who you don't always see eye to eye with, that's difficult. But in the end, we are so much better for it.