Savannah Abbott’s Reflection

Love conquers fear

I wanted to write this reflection around the idea “Love conquers fear”. In the scariest and most fearful experiences of our lives, we question God: his motives for our lives, his existence, and we beg for the pain to stop. When we don’t get an immediate response to our prayers, we question our faith, our relationships, our purpose for life.

My scariest and most fearful experience in life was watching my dad struggle through his last couple weeks in this life. They were hard. I remember going to visit him every chance I could in the hospital. Some days he didn’t recognize me, some days he did. Some days he was angry and frustrated, some days he was calm and at peace. To this day, I can still hear his voice asking me a question when he was calm and recognized me. “Savannah, are you happy?”

In the beginning, I was answering it based on our situation, and I would tell him, “I’ll be happy when you feel better and are home with Mom and brother.”

After a couple weeks, and I realized that we were not going to get the outcome of him feeling better. He would still ask me, “Savannah, are you happy?”

I told him my truth, “No dad, I’m not.” It was like he was waiting for that answer. He said “Then do something about it. Ok?”

I said, “I will Daddy, I promise.” It took everything I had to fight the tears in front of him, but as soon as I got to my car, I begged God to help me with my dad’s final wish for me. I was deeply afraid of living my life without my dad here. Nobody can prepare you for the loss of a loved one, especially for a daughter to lose the man whose primary job is to keep her safe in this world.

One of the reasons that I wasn’t happy back then, and I’m still not, is because of my depression journey. It’s no secret that I have lived like this for more than half my life, but God’s love is making a difference every day. I’ll never forget a class that Fr. Dale taught about miracles. During the class, he gave each of us a blank piece of paper and told us, “Now that you know what a miracle is, write one for yourself.”

I wrote “I want God to heal my depression. There are people in my life that believe I will never overcome it — but with God I know that I can.”

I know that my faith will heal me. This is my story of the bleeding woman.

She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” His response “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.” (Mark 5: 27-28,34 NLT).

My depression has always felt like this mountain that I couldn’t move alone. The more I read the Bible and the stories of God’s amazing love, the more I see myself in those stories and my faith tells me that my suffering will end. This is validated for me with the scripture: This is my command — be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:9 NLT). I am not doing this alone, I never have. God is always with me, navigating through this world and proving along the way that my faith is healing me. My dad is still gone, but he lives on in my heart, he lives in the stories I share about him. The tears that flow down my face when I talk about him is my love for him trying to find somewhere to go. Love comes from the same place. God himself is love. He is where all love starts, it just goes through us so we can share him with others. In the end for the bleeding woman, for myself, and for you: love conquers fear. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment. The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18 CEB). When we embrace the love of God, we are embracing perfect love.

As we navigate the fears of our lives, big and small, remember God is walking that journey with you. When you can surrender your fears to him, then you are embracing that perfect love, and it will drive out all your fears. For myself, I pray for that perfect love. For you, I pray for that perfect love. When we succeed, all fear is gone.

God bless you.