I know this isn’t art from DragonBirth, but this has been really close to me for a long time, as I’ve been struggling with this for a while, and since things have finally become clear to me, I’ve wanted to write and share it.

But I don’t often write non-fiction well … so, here it is. Because I wrote it, I couldn’t put off sharing it.

---

Have you ever been afraid?

Not just afraid something might happen to you.

Maybe not even afraid something might happen to you.

Certainly, that wasn’t the most important part.

Afraid of what you would be.

The challenge might be too much.

You might fail (even when? especially when? Perhaps you didn’t have to?)

Even so.

You’ve failed already.

Is there a point in going on?

Can you be what you were meant to be?

Can you try again?

Have you ever been afraid?

And known your fear would sabotage and make a ruin of your best effort?

Paralyzed by fear that condemned you to the failure you feared?

Afraid to step out, to try, lest you fail, lest it all be for nothing.

Afraid to face your failures, or the ways you’re wrong, in case that’s a road that never ends and you can never escape the guilt of what you got wrong ….

Have you ever wanted not to be afraid?

What would it be like not to be afraid?

I’ve had a lot of questions lately about my beliefs. What they mean. What I really do believe. What all the things I said and believed actually mean to me, in my life, in reality. There’s been a lot of upheaval, and sometimes even when you know what’s steady, it takes a while to find that point and be able to work outward from it. To see your new world from the place you always knew was center. At least, that’s been my experience, that sometimes I know what I believe, I even know why, but I don’t really know what it means or how it fits, and I can’t find that balance yet.

It’s a long story, and I couldn’t tell all of it if I even wanted to.

Fear. That’s something that presents it test to me in one way or another, again and again. Fear of betraying who and what I am. (Have I?) Fear of doing it again. Fear of going further down that road.

And how do you try through the fear? How do you be who you are when you’re desperately afraid, and when you know – or fear – that you can be thrown in situations where you will betray all of that?

Where do you find the courage to try?

I find that in unconditional love and forgiveness. That no matter how far I fall, how deep the fear, how dark the pain, wherever it takes me – no matter how many times I fail, again and again and again – no matter all of that, even if I don’t believe it, even if I can’t believe it, I’m loved. Forgiven. Someone will heal all the wounds. Someone will put all the wrongs to rights. Someone will love me no matter what.

No one, nothing, is beyond this healing. Beyond this love. Beyond this right-making.

That’s what alone can give me the strength to try again. Not in paralyzing fear that fulfills its own prophecy. But to try, even if I know my trying isn’t enough, without fear.

To live again. Be who I am.

Instead of drowning in the quagmire of the fear of being what I’m not.

I’m not perfect. But I know what holds me back. The fear I often can’t fully step out of. The fact that even though I know this unconditional love and acceptance is real … sometimes other things seem more real.

But those are the things that hold me back. Those are the things that keep me from stepping out of what I’ve done wrong – or suffered – and living. Loving. Being who I am.

Because of the fear of messing up doesn’t let me see straight. It doesn’t let me try, and grow from what I’ve gotten right. It poisons everything.

But to know, no matter what, I’m loved. No matter what, someone will heal all the wounds, the ones I bear and the ones I cause, and all the others I don’t have to do anything to do with, too. That gives me the freedom to try.

So, in the end, I’ve realized, you can’t repent unless you’re unconditionally loved, unconditionally forgiven. You can’t step out of fear and be who you are and who you are meant to be, simply because it is right, it is who you are, it is what you would like to be, if you’re afraid of punishment.

Even if it’s self-inflicted punishment. It does a lot to believe God won’t punish you.

But it takes knowing you’ll be rescued from your own punishment of yourself, to really break those last chains and be free to live again.

It takes knowing that, no matter what, you’ll be loved and accepted to turn your back on what you got wrong. Otherwise, the fear that even now you’re not turning your back on it is paralyzing. But if you know you’re unconditionally loved, then you can turn your back on the wrong without fear and live.

It takes knowing that, no matter how ruined it feels, it isn’t ruined. There’s still purpose. There’s still life. And even if you fail again, you can’t ruin it so that it won’t be healed, to find that strength to step past fear.

It takes knowing that even if you don’t believe, you’re loved, to find hope. Even if the place you are is so dark, even if you are so weak, even if the pain is too much, for you to believe, or try, or hope … you are loved, no matter what, and your wounds will be healed.

Even if you know you don’t believe they ever can be.

But when you know that healing is the final truth, you can say, “Yes, there are places where I might be blind, where I might not be able to believe this. When all that I see now will seem meaningless and empty. But I am going to live. I am going to live as if what I know is true, even if there might be times when I do not know it and cannot live it. I am going to live by what I believe, even if I knew for a certainty that I would betray it.”

Well, at least that is my experience.