Love and Fear

We will all make thousands of decisions in our lifetime: some are great whoppers of decisions, some are very small and insignificant, and others are just in the middle somewhere. Most of the decisions I make may depend on my mood, or the weather, or the time, or some other something-and-nothing factor. The humongous, life-changing decisions in my life, however, are always driven by one of two things: Love or fear. The decisions I have made out of fear are never really things that leave much evidence of a conclusion; they are the defeated dreams and ambitions; the squashed wants; the 'what-ifs'. It's understandable that fear has such a massive impact – after all, there could be severe risks involved in pursuing dreams that may not be worth it. But do I want something more than I fear it?

And then there are the choices that are driven out of love – not just the soppy, romantic kind, but the gritty, passionate and devoted kind. The kind that make you do things you thought you never could because you believe in the goodness of the result; the kind that breed untameable hope. Of course, these choices will still have potential for mistakes, but my guess is that if your heart wants to do the right thing those choices will inevitably end up being right too.

But making decisions out of love or fear is not always reacting to the first initial response. It is not always a definite, gut wrenching decision, as though it were a life and death situation. There's this misconception that making any sort of large decision has to be some sort of lightening bolt revelation; that you're either forced out of where you are because it is so dire you need a change of direction, or you're so excited about a prospect that you just can't help yourself from grabbing it. But what if you just think, so you know what, I'll take a risk because I believe that goodness wins; because I believe that love really does conquer all; because I believe that perfect love gets rid of fear?

As real as fears seem they will never outweigh decisions made out of love. The fears I have may make my decisions weak to some, but to me they make my decisions more real, more raw, a little deeper. The pains of childbirth and early motherhood haven't faded for me as people told me they would – they are still like open wounds. I've been so consumed with fears that I have not been able to have what I really want. But as you come out of the other side, three and a half years later, you see what hidden treasure you've found. Priceless. What if I made a decision despite my fears because I believe in goodness? What if I made a decision to love and not to fear?

I don't want my choices to be influenced by paper-thin emotions. I don't want to be the person who is swayed by a moment of brudiness, or a pressure to conform to 2.4 children. Good decisions will always count the cost. There will be things I have to sacrifice – my life will change, I may become stronger or weaker, I may be more or less fearful, but I will have more love and laughter in my life. So instead of letting my fears squash me or hem me in, I will let love stretch me a bit more and help me to make good choices that see my fears that little bit more defeated and give me more opportunities to love.

So we said we'd give it till March because I couldn't cope with my life on hold for longer than that. I took a test on April 1st. Negative. That's fine, I thought, and I drunk a bottle of wine. Except that the test on April 2nd told me otherwise. I guess God didn't want me to think it was an April Fools. So we met this little jumping bean on a fuzzy tv screen a few weeks ago and we meet them in person sometime around Dec 1st.