Love That Walks the Edge

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear. (1 Jn. 4:18)

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Gal. 6:2)

Dearest Daughters,

Scripture tells us that perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18). I’ve seen this demonstrated both in the lives of others and in my own. And I would add this: if perfect love casts out fear, then absolute fear also casts out love. The two cannot cohabit. Where one reigns, the other fades.

Let me tell you a story.

Fear of heights runs strongly in my family. I remember being about thirteen, living in a canyon in Colorado, when your great-grandparents came to visit. The road down to our home was steep and winding. My grandmother sat on the floorboards of the car the entire way, shaking from head to toe. When she arrived, she said adamantly, “I will not go back out on that road until the day we leave!”

And she didn’t. No rides, no picnics, no outings—she stayed at the bottom of the canyon the entire visit, simply to avoid the road. Such was her fear of heights.

I was never like that. I loved mountain roads and rope swings and scrambling over rocks. But once I had children of my own, something shifted. I began to fear edges, not at first for myself, but for you kids. Helen, you will remember this clearly. That feeling has only grown stronger as I’ve grown older. I still love to hike and climb, but I don’t enjoy edges. Some people would laugh because my definition of an edge and theirs may differ, but the feeling is real all the same.

Now to the day I discovered how love can overcome fear.

It was a hot day in August at Arches National Park. We decided to take an eight-mile hike with the four youngest children as we traveled toward the Idaho community. We started early, with a nip in the air that melted away as soon as the desert sun crested the red rocks and began to bake the cracked earth. The wild beauty of the place—towering stone, narrow passages—made you feel as though you had stepped into Petra or an ancient temple. We craved every scrap of shade the trail offered and paused frequently for drinks under the meager shade of any jutting rock.

As the day wore on, the trail proved longer than we expected. Somehow eight miles grew and stretched.

Several of you kids have also inherited a fear of heights, Christopher and Carri Beth most strongly. Christopher, especially, has other needs that can amplify fear. At one point we reached a long, narrow fin of rock. It dropped off on both sides. The top itself was fairly wide, three to five feet, but the drop was ominous.

Daddy had Ari and was guiding Nicolas and Carri Beth, so Christopher latched onto me. He is quite big now, bigger than me, but his lack of self-consciousness allowed him to clutch my shoulder and then my hand. I told him, “Just don’t take your eyes off the back of my head.” I led him across the fin.

“You can do it. You’re doing great. Don’t look down. Look straight ahead,” I encouraged as he wobbled along clutching me with a sweaty grip.

He encouraged himself aloud the whole way. I can do it. I can do it. When we reached solid ground, we thought the worst was behind us. But about six and a half miles into the loop trail, we reached a cliff.

The trail simply sloped away and dropped into a narrow chasm. There was no way down except to cling to the rock face, turning your feet sideways as you descended. The stone was rough enough to grip, but it was enough to turn my stomach.

I told all the children to sit down and took Ari’s three-year-old hand. “Now what are we going to do?” I asked Dad.

He climbed up and down among the junipers, releasing their sharp scent in the heat, searching for another route. Other hikers passed us, who’d been down before, and confirmed this was the only way down.

Turning back would mean hiking in darkness. And Christopher did not want to cross the fin again.

Dad said, “Let me try it first.”

He climbed down and came back up with a calm, faith-filled report: It’s doable.

We made a plan that Dad would carry Ari down, with Nicolas—our least afraid—and I would follow. Then Dad would climb back up for Carri Beth and then Kippy. Just before I started down, I turned to Carri Beth and Kippy.

“Now I’m going to do this,” I said, as calmly as I could. “And I want you to watch me and see how easy it is.”

As soon as I began, I was acutely aware that they were watching—not just to see if I would make it, but how I would move and how steady my steps were. They would note whether my voice shook or whether I hesitated. So I didn’t.

I fixed my eyes on Daddy’s back and followed my own advice. Don’t look down.

“I trust him,” I prayed, watching him with Ari. “Lord, don’t let his feet slip.”

And something strange happened. I didn’t think about my own feet at all. Left. Right. Left. Right. One hand on the rock, the other out for balance. I wasn’t climbing for myself; I was climbing for them. We reached the bottom, and I’d felt absolutely no fear, no trembling, sweating or nausea, things I typically feel on an edge like that.

Then Dad climbed back up for the others. From below, I could hear their cries of fear spilling out as they clung to him with both arms while he backed his way along the cliff.

“You can do it!” I shouted.

Without realizing it, I began jumping in place.

“Left foot! Right foot! One more step! That’s it—you’ve got this!” I shouted, my voice echoing off the stone.

At one point Ari looked up at me and asked, “Mommy, why are you jumping?”

When they reached the bottom, we all had tears in our eyes. Not just because we were safe—we had trusted that we would be—but because they had overcome themselves. Left foot. Right foot. Step by step.

The hike ended well, and everyone talked triumphantly about scaling a cliff. But what stood out to me was this: I never felt fear on that descent. Not even a hint. Normally, a rock like that would have made me want to lose my lunch. Why didn’t it?

Because they needed courage more than I did. Because I had just a shred more faith than they had, and I gave it to them.

When you love someone deeply, when they need faith even more than you do, your own fears loosen their grip. You find yourself doing things you never thought you could do—scaling mountains you never imagined climbing.

So when fear overwhelms you, look for someone to love, to give courage. Give them faith, and watch your own fear disappear.

With all my love,

Mom