“Fear the Lord” is a phrase that I have struggled with. In my head fear is related to creatures such as snakes and spiders. If not related to creatures my head drifts to heights or the fear or the dark, but never the Lord. To me fears are things people dislike, while the Lord is someone we are called to love. Why fear someone who you are supposed to love? Fear in my mind was also linked to weakness. Fear was an emotion my pride would not allow to be seen. In middle school I developed the thought process that being vulnerable and letting people see your fears gave them an advantage over you. So I refused to fear. I would not allow others to find weaknesses to use against me. Despite my best efforts there was one thing that I slowly, but surely, developed a fear of. Love. Because my ego loathed the emotion of fear, I turned it into disgust. The thought of falling in love made me sick. My mind told me that nothing good could come from it. All it could bring was heart ache. But because I am a human who was created to love, the empty void inside of me taunted me. I longed for it to be filled. Over and over I fell into the temptation to search for a filler. Searching high and low in all the WRONG places. In hopes of receiving something in return I gave myself away, offering pieces of my soul. Never to the one who could keep and preserve my soul, but to the ones who could break me. A process I repeated more than once deepening my loath for this thing called “love.” But I still longed for it, and I hated myself for it. No matter how hard I tried to resist I always found myself searching for a filler. I searched in all direction except for one. I was broken. My soul was scattered, and becoming whole again was beyond me.
“Allow me to piece you back together. Let me love you. Let me show you your worth my daughter.”
The Lord’s words echoed in my emptiness. In surrender. Realizing the depths of my brokenness I offered myself to Him, and prayed for God to make me whole again. Piece by piece He returned my soul.
“You are whole again Taylor.”
But He didn’t stop there. He wanted me to know more!
“You are fearfully and wonderfully created by ME! Through me all things are perfect! My daughter, you are worthy. So worthy that I have deemed you PURE again!”
Relived, ecstatic, and overwhelmed with joy I was ready to start the new chapter in my life. Redeemed and pure I was ready to fully live my life for Christ! Months later as I started the 3rd month of my 9-month mission trip I heard the words,
“You are getting it all wrong.”
These words brought tears to my eyes, and filled my stomach with knots! “I am across the world living on a mission for you Lord. If I am still getting it wrong, there is no hope for me,” I thought to myself. How is there any hope left for me at this point?
“I am proud of you, but you still don’t get it.”
“You are right God, I don’t get it!” I replied in anger and pushed His words out of my head. Shifting my focus on to something else so I didn’t have to hear them eating away at me.
Days later I laid on my bed reading “Redeeming Love”. In my head I was longing for a guy to love me as much as Michael loved Angel in the book. I had been having selfish desires of craving for a guy’s attention and love for weeks. The desire made me feel sick, and little by little crushed my confidence. Reading this book wasn’t making matters any better. It was about God telling a man to take a harlot to be his wife, and him loving her despite her past and her desire to run away from him. I couldn’t help but question if anyone would be able to love me like this.
“You are getting it all wrong.”
“Great we are back to this again.” I thought to myself in annoyance. Then it hit me like a sack of rocks! I understood what I was getting wrong. All my life and even in that moment I was longing to receive “perfect” love from the opposite sex. My mind was set on finding the perfect guy when He was in front of me. The one who offered PERFECT LOVE despite my past. Despite how many times I tried to run away from Him!
“Yes beloved, I want you to be my Bride!”
It was that simple. After all this time of searching how could I not have understood that the love that craved, a love so perfect, could only come from the Lord! Only He could unravel the fear so deeply rooted in me.
“Fall in love with me. Let me teach you what love looks like. Learn how to be my wife.”
At this revelation my heart leaped. It had been God all along. No one else could fill the void, because it was only His to fill. As I read Proverbs 31:10-31 I became aware of the steps I had to take as His Bride to become the excellent wife of Christ.
“Lord, I pray that you will teach my heart to fall madly in love with you, becoming a woman who FEARS you! Teach me to be open to the fear, and the love you are offering me!”
Love, your Bride.
