Perfect Love Drives out Fear

I will be going to Chicago to watch my son in the National Appellate Advocacy finals. I will stay with my sis outside of the city, but will have to ride into the city by myself. She will put me on a train that will take me to Union Station and then I have to walk 4 blocks to the Federal Courthouse ALL ALONE AGAIN in that big scary city. Big cities freak me out. I get very flustered by subways, wondering how people with lower intellect than I manage to navigate through them. I am not dumb, not markedly anyway, but subway maps look like brain circuitry and incomprehensible. I vaguely recall one subway that had you pay as you left, rather than when you got on. I wondered what happened if I didn't have the right token. Would I be found 500 years later with a sign lettered in my blood, held in my skeleton digits, that said,

"Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
"Relax, " said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave! " (Lyrics Hotel California by Eagles)

In a panic last night, when I learned I would have to go to Chicago alone on the train, I told Asherel I didn't know if I was up to this challenge. She had been really looking forward to visiting her Chicago cousins. She rolled her eyes. She wisely didn't argue (much). She has learned that if ideas percolate in my head a while, I usually get used to them, and often back off of my original stance.

It is a big city, completely unfamiliar, and filled with Northerners. I am a southerner, or have been for the past near twenty years. I have even been known to say , "Might could" now and then. I didn't start off as a country hick, but i think I am one now. So I am scared, but there is something more important than fear. My son, the one that still calls to tell me the good news in his life making me feel valued and loved, has qualified after a lot of really hard work to this prestigious event. I will drive those 15 hours straight, and then brave that scary train to watch him argue his case in that wonderful courtroom in his first national competition because love overcomes fear.

It is one of the best lessons of the Gospel. Time to put it to the test.

1 John 4:18 (NIV)
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.






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