Perfect love casts out fear

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love." --1 John 4:18

If we fear God, then we do not love Him, and we do not know Him. For God is love! God is an ocean of mercy. When you look upon His Son on the cross, how can you be afraid of Him? He will protect you and rescue you; He has sacrificed His only Beloved Son that we might be reunited with Him! He will not let satan take us if we choose Him. And how He longs for us to choose Him!!

Why is there so much fear and strife in male-female relationships today? Why is there such denial against the beautiful differences between the sexes? Because of fear. When women today refuse to admit their longing for male protection, and adamantly insist that they are strong on their own, it is their wounds speaking. And how deep those wounds go! If only men would take up their cross and sacrifice themselves for women as they are called to do by Christ, women would perhaps be willing to climb down from their own counterfeit and take their place of receptivity. For as JPII wrote in his letter to women, a woman's vocation is to be loved! And yet so few women fulfill that vocation, because to be loved means to be receptive, and to be receptive means to be vulnerable. How woman's heart aches to be vulnerable under the protection of love, but when love cannot be found, then she cannot surrender herself to it. For the men who do seek to climb up on the cross next to their Savior and fulfill their vocation to love, they are often cut down then by these wounded women, just as Christ was told to climb down by his bride. The men are told that they are demeaning women by trying to love and protect them. Men become wounded, and begin to use women as objects of lust rather than subjects of love. They begin to dominate woman rather than love her because in their hearts they know that it is their role to be strong for her and to sacrifice for her, but through their wounds this desire becomes twisted.

And where does this leave us? When wounds encounter wounds, it is a battlefield! And neither is able to fulfill their vocation that God has given them; often the wounds are so deep that they cannot even recognize their true longing! But through Christ, each can be healed, as the wounds encounter instead their physician. Men are reminded that true woman is worth dying for; unrequited love, and unappreciated sacrifice are a part of that cross. They must follow Christ's example of selfless gift! Women are reminded that true man does not dominate and manipulate, but protects and loves; he sacrifices himself for woman. They must follow Mary's example of receptivity to this gift! Only then can man and woman have the beauty of perfect love and cast out fear.