What are you most afraid to say?
A hard question to answer. Especially because answering it means saying the thing you are afraid of. That’s irony at it’s finest.
But the question was posed to me recently and the first thing that came to mind (I mean immediately I thought of this) was “I love you.”
I love you.
Those three simple words have terrified me for as long as I can remember. Even with my family.
I think most of my fear is because I don’t want to be vulnerable. A lot of the way I act is to avoid vulnerability.
I crack jokes, smile often, adopt a care-free attitude, and try to live in the moment. And parts of all of those things are authentic. Parts of those things are me. But some of it is a front to appear “ok.” To seem like I have it all together so I don’t have to talk about how I don’t.
Because I don’t like vulnerability. Being vulnerable means you are opening yourself up to the possibility of being hurt.
Being vulnerable means you are giving up control. Not being vulnerable means there is a lack of trust.
I have a lack of trust.
When you tell someone you love them you offer them two options: to return your love, or to throw it away.
The thing that scares me most about saying “I love you” is not the act of saying “I love you.” The thing that scares me most is the possibility of not hearing it back. The chance that the other person will not return my love, but instead tear it up and throw it away.
It has always been, and always will be, safer for me to keep love to myself.
It has never been, and never will be, better.
Love, like a seed, is not meant to be kept. Instead, it’s meant to be given and, over the course of time, nurtured to become something infinitely more beautiful than it started as.
But doing so will always require vulnerability.
In gardening we have no control over whether or not a seed will grow. We plant it, we fertilize it, we water it; but ultimately whether the seed grows or not is out of our hands.
We can control our relationships just as much as we can control plant growth. We can do things to help growth, but the actual process of growth does not come from us.
Growth comes from God.
When I am afraid to trust people with my heart it looks like I don’t trust them. But really, in those moments, it’s much bigger than just people.
Really I am not trusting God.
I am not trusting God to work in my life, and in the life of the person I have a relationship with, to bless and encourage me. I am not trusting Him to work for my good in each and every situation.
I am saying, “God, let me take this because I know what I need better than you do.”
I am afraid the love that God has for me, both from Him and from His people, will not be enough for me.
I am afraid to tell other people “I love you” because they might not say it back. But it’s deeper. The heart of the matter is this:
I am afraid to say “I love you” because, somewhere within me, I am not sure if God is saying it back to me.
You want to know the craziest part of that? I didn’t even know a part of me believed that until I typed it out.
I am afraid to be vulnerable and love with no reservations because I don’t have a full realization of how much the Father loves me, His precious child.
So Father, I pray that you would reveal your love to me in new ways. That the depth of my understanding of your love for me would increase beyond what I can even imagine. And that it would increase even more than that. I pray that you would reveal that same love to everyone who reads these words and that you would change all of our relationships to reflect that, and to reflect you. Thank you for your love. And God?
I love you.
