Perfect Love is Giving Fear the Boot

My name is Ada. Some of my family call me “Adabear”. And you may call me what you like, so long as it isn’t Aiden, Anna, or Adam… I get enough of that from Starbucks. Some of you know me very well. You know what makes me come alive and what makes me want to shrink back. Many of you will learn more about me by reading this blog, even this single entry, than I’ve revealed to you in the months or years since our initial introduction. 

I’ve had a tendency to shut up and hide. You’ve heard, “Be quick to hear and slow to speak”? Well, I may have taken that a bit far… but God is calling me higher, out of familiarity and comfort, into the dreams He’s placed in my heart. At my best and truest, I am head over heals for God, gushing and overflowing into the lives around me. At my worst, I’m giving into fears and hiding. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden”  (Matthew 5:14). How can I cover what He’s intended to shine? If I deny that I have any word, gift, good thing to bring, I deny His goodness. He has fearfully and wonderfully made me (and you) with great purpose (Psalm 139:14). He has given freely to me beyond my wildest dreams, and so I must give freely (and wildly) to those around me (Matthew 10:8). If I say I love God and people, how can I hold back my voice, my arms, my resources? 

In January, I leave all that is familiar and comfortable for new opportunities to say no to fear and yes to loving boldly. When I’m faced with lies, sickness, poverty, abuses, loss…when I have the opportunity to declare truth, healing, abundance, freedom, restoration…when I have the chance to shout aloud what Holy Spirit has whispered to me…when I have the chance to give a reason for the hope I have inside, I will hear Papa God and my world race family calling me higher, saying, “Do the thing you fear.” And I will. We will.
Perfect love is giving fear the boot (I John 4:18).

“And He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing.” Luke 9:2

And now I’m going to bless you with five random tidbits about me…

1) I LOVE bubbles and rain. there are currently at least five bottles of bubbles in my purse. Though I’m a bit of a Mary Poppins, I haven’t figured out how to fit a rain cloud in my purse…yet.
2) there is a war within me between the strong desire to never ever ever use capitalization and years of grammar education (I mean YEARS, my mother was an English teacher). 
3) I’m going to dance this year… this word is straight from God. o man. do the thing you fear.
4) My earliest ambition was to be an explorer.
5) I once found a horse’s skull in the woods behind my house. I was shocked and disappointed by the lack of thrill and approval from my first grade class during show-and-tell.