I've had a lot of huge life events happen in my world lately. Outside of the horrifying things going on within this country as well as outside of it, I've gone through several rites of passage that many before have also experienced.
I turned 21 on June 28, which means I am considered by the government and many others to be a "true" adult. Not a week later, my boyfriend of almost three years proposed in front of all my friends and family. I will never be able to express my how truly excited-scared-joyful-nervous that I felt in that moment.
I'm not going to make this post about getting to spend these next 11 months planning for the event that will make my fiancee my forever life partner, nor will I burden you with the very real and true love that we share now, and that will only grow in the coming 50 or 60 years, God willing.
However, what I will share is the fear that comes with these very adult things. I do not feel like an adult. I do not feel like an engaged woman. I do not feel like I am old enough to buy alcohol. (It doesn't help that I don't look old enough either). Because I'm the youngest of six kids, I've always been "the baby," "little sister," or "baby sister" etc.
I am afraid. I feel fear during the most trivial moments, things that most others wouldn't think twice about. I feel fear when I am insecure or when I am angry. I feel fear when someone challenges who I am, when someone tries to change something about me. Fear is a huge part of my life, as I'm sure it is in many other peoples. I feel fear for the future, both my own and of his world. We've seen so many horrible, horrible things happen, where people who shouldn't have died did. This makes me afraid because it could happen anywhere.
But isn't fear a sin? Isn't fear the lack of trust for our Creator, who promises to sustain us and take care of us. Isn't it a lack of confidence in the one who thought the world needed one of us too? Many would say, how can we trust that this almighty God is going to take care of us when so many have been hurt already?
But what we forget is that this same God who "SO LOVED THE WORLD" gave up his only Son to die for our every sin so that we could live with him too (John 3:16). We are created to live for him. He wants us to live for him. At the sound of his name, we should lose all fear and KNOW that our God is in his place, and that he loves his people. And regardless of what happens to me, I know who I will see at the end of my life, and I know his name.
The Bible talks about fear a lot. I've had to dig in deep to understand where it comes from lately, but a verse I've always clung to is 1 John 4:18-19, which says "There is no fear in love, but perfect love CASTS OUT fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us". Pray. Pray for God's perfect love to touch the hearts of the angry, the lost, the lonely. Pray that we can love those who are unlike us.
