Greatest Fear is Truth Itself

“‘Verily,’ said Gandalf, now in a loud voice, keen and clear, ‘that way lies our hope, where sits our greatest fear.”  Those who know me well can attest that I am more apt to listen to truth if it is spoken through the words of Tolkien.  But that night as I lay on my friend’s couch, clutching the life out of my poor stuffed rabbit, it was her voice that first introduced me to this truth.  I had just poured out my deepest fear, the terror that had lurked in the crevices of my heart for as long as I could remember.  But rather than comforting me or distracting me from the beast, she looked it head on and told me “The opposites of our greatest fears are the truest things about us.”

I sat there for a moment wrapping my head around this concept.  My most basic fear has run like a marquee in my mind for years, “those who know me don’t love me, and those who love me don’t know me.”  And earlier that afternoon, circumstances had seemed to prove this lie to be truer than ever and the buried terror had raised its ugly head.  What if those who get too close to me don’t like what they see?  What if the deepest parts of me are unlovable?  What if I am never truly loved, or worse yet, never truly known?

But here my friend was telling me this fear might be the opposite of the truth.  What if this fear is so deep because it stems from the very thing that makes me most beautiful?  What if I am a treasure, waiting to be unearthed by those who take the effort to discover me?  I desire few things as much as to know and love people deeply.  In my dictionary, to know and to love are synonymous.  I have never gotten to know someone more and found that I love them less.  This is the foundation for how I interact with others; I delight in discovering their goodness and finding how to love them so as to bring out that treasure again and again.  So it makes sense that what I fear most is to be seen yet not really known, to have bared my heart to someone and have them not recognize it’s worth.  (Maybe that is why vulnerability is so scary for me)

Accepting this has been a major step in growing down.  The truth I hold is the chink in the scaly armor of my fear.  I can rest in the fact that I am known and loved well by many, and completely by One.  And with that knowledge comes the ability to shed the protections I have built around myself over the years.  The bulky layers are falling off to reveal the true Naomi that was waiting there all along.

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Crafted by Confusing Love

I delight in few things more than trees.  And my favorite time for tree-watching is right now.  There are just enough leaves left to give the light a green or golden glow, but the branches are bare enough to expose their intricate beauty.  There have been several times in the past weeks that I have stopped in my tracks with my jaw literally dropping as a familiar trunk takes on new wonder.  Just this afternoon I was laying in a meadow gazing at trees with a friend.

“What’s your favorite thing about trees?” I asked.

“Ah, that’s tough.  But I’d have to say the random, asymmetrical, whimsical, uniqueness of the branches.”

I smiled my agreement with her assessment.  “You know what I like? I like thinking how every little twist and turn of each branch is a direct result of so many factors- of sun and shade and wind and rain…”

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Go back a few days.  I’m sitting with an older friend who has become a great source of mentorship and insight.  Over dinner, we talk about music, about writing, about life.  When all of a sudden, she brings up the thoughts that have unknowingly weighed on my mind.  “So, Naomi Brown, let’s talk about how you’re going to be in a relationship someday?”  I slowly shrank back into my chair as we discussed the ins and outs of my least favorite topic.

It’s not that I’m afraid of loving, on the contrary, loving people deeply is almost second nature.  And I don’t even have a problem accepting love from others.  But the vulnerability, the pressure, the unknown of something that requires my all is terrifying.  I like to have a plan before I ever set out on something.  My mind constantly has several outcomes and escape strategies for every situation I’m in.  So to ever embark on such an unpredictable journey is hard for my mind to accept.

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These were the thoughts scampering around the back of my mind in the meadow today.  But it wasn’t until several hours later that the connection was made known.  As often happens, it was words from a song that brought the clarity.

“Life is a branch and it is a dove, handcrafted by confusing love.” 

Despite what my strategic mind may tell me, life is unpredictable.  It is confusing and ambiguous and full of hurt no amount of planning can avoid.  But all these uncontrollable factors, all these tough and frustrating aspects of love, are shaping me.  You know what I like? I like how this random, unsymmetrical, whimsical, unique world is crafted by confusing Love.

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