Article April 27, 1987 Issue

Where divine Love is, fear isn't

Tough academic demands, a competitive artistic performance, or the need to be healed of disease need not make us feel pressured with fear. There is a Bible promise that brings healing—Love casts out fear.

Kathryn V. Wood

In preparing me for performances and auditions, my voice teacher sometimes quoted a famous Italian voice coach who said, "If your knowledge is weak, so will be your knees." He also told me of this verse from First John: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear."^{I John 4:18.}

I asked him, "What is perfect love?" He replied, " 'God is Love,' the Bible tells us." He helped me see that perfect means whole, complete, without fault, completely satisfying. My teacher was a Christian Scientist, and when he found out I was receptive, he told me what Christian Science teaches of our real nature. The real man is the image and likeness of God; he is the reflection of divine Love. Fearful, anxious thoughts cannot enter the consciousness of the real man. To confirm his remarks, my instructor read the following passage to me from one of Mrs. Eddy's books: "Science saith to fear, 'You are the cause of all sickness; but you are a self-constituted falsity,—you are darkness, nothingness. You are without "hope, and without God in the world." You do not exist, and have no right to exist, for "perfect Love casteth out fear."'"^{Retrospection and Introspection, p. 61.}

This was a revolutionary concept for me. I was in my late teens at the time, and while I had been taught in a Protestant Sunday School that "God is love," I had also been taught that He is a God of vengeance, knowing the evils that people do and punishing them for wrongdoing.

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