Note: This post is adapted from a testimony of God’s recent work in me that I shared with my Christian fellowship at Purdue in October 2023.
I’m going to preface this post by saying we’re all looking for love somewhere. We all have this gap in our hearts we’re trying to fill.
Have you watched Fiddler on the Roof? Do you remember that scene where Tevye, the Papa, asks his wife, Golde, “Do you love me?”
If not, you’ll need to watch it sometime. The thing is, Tevye and Golde had been married for a long time—25 years—but it was an arranged marriage. They didn’t even meet each other until their wedding day. They never shared that passionate, romantic, newlywed love because they were just thrown together and had to figure out how to do life together. Golde is not a touchy-feely person. She’s a no-nonsense housewife, and “I love you” is not a regular part of her vocabulary.
Suddenly, this question is important to Tevye. “Do you love me?”
This is a question that’s important to all of us, whether we’re thinking of our friends, family, or our relationship with God. And it’s a question that was especially important to me last semester.
To be clear, I was already a Christian, and I had been since I was 12 or so. I was blessed to grow up in the church. But this was a question that was bugging me in early 2023, during my freshman spring semester. Was I really loved? Was I loved by God? Was I loved by the people around me?
The method I chose to go after this love was perfectionism. I wanted to do everything right, say all the right things, and be the kind of person people liked. But this method came with a strong fear of rejection. What if I messed up?
Overcoming Fear of Failure and Rejection
This summer, I brought my perfectionism to a new job at Chick-fil-A, and I was humbled. I will never look at fast food workers the same way again. There is so much information to remember, and it takes skill to work in that fast-paced environment and do everything the right way. And as much as I tried, I would either be too slow or mess things up. My perfectionism had come from a fear that I would be rejected in social settings. But now my workplace perfectionism came from a very real fear that I would be fired if I couldn’t get this right.
So. I had this manager named Darren. And he was great. He taught me how to roll up Doordash bags and put the stickers on them the “right” way. He was detail-oriented that way. But he was also the manager I call the scary manager. When he was not around, everyone breathed a little easier. When he was around, you knew he was watching your every move. He seriously counted the napkins I had put in a bag once, and I was so relieved to pass that test. But if I made a milkshake and it was a little messy … he was the one who caught it.
There was one time, or maybe two, he pulled me aside to talk to me, and I was terrified. Maybe I had made one too many mistakes, and this would be the day that I got laid off. However, he just told me I needed to be faster on Mobile Beverages, even if that meant making more mistakes, and he asked if there was any way management could help me get more experience there, and then I got back to work.
I learned to move on from my mistakes without fearing the mistakes to come. It was a lesson that came out of necessity because I made mistakes every day. Mistakes were just part of my job, and my perfectionism was effectively burned to the ground, imprinting a valuable lesson I could take away in life and in my walk with God.
Friends, God will never reject us. We’re never going to come to a point where one more mistake will get us “fired.” We can rest secure in His love for us, no matter how little we have to offer.
In 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (ESV), the apostle Paul writes, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
Sharing Genuine Love with Others
Ok, that was my first unexpected lesson from working at Chick-fil-A. There’s another one too.
When I started my training, I fully expected that “Have a nice day,” would just be something I said to people. It’s just part of customer service, right? Customer service people can’t actually mean it when it’s the same thing they tell every single person who walks through the door.
However, something kind of weird happened. As I forced a smile and recited my script to customer after customer, I found that my words were 100% genuine. I didn’t know these people, and some of them were very different from me. But I knew they were created and loved by God, so I genuinely hoped they would experience some of His goodness that day.
I knew this wasn’t me, but this was God working in my heart to genuinely love these strangers. It’s something I’m still trying to practice. Having a heart that reflects God’s love for the people around me: people I know well and people I just met.
Ultimately, this love comes from the amazing undeserved love that God first showed us through Jesus Christ. Even when we ignored, disobeyed, rejected, and replaced Him, He continued to extend His forgiveness to us—caring for us, redeeming us, and offering us eternal life with Him.
Embracing God’s Love Through His People
That leads me back to Tevye’s question to his wife: “Do you love me?”
This question was something I used to struggle with. I had these conspiracy theories in my head last semester, that maybe people just pretended to like me. There were so many reasons I could list that I was not lovable.
But I saw God work in me to love strangers this summer. And I’ve seen the way He’s naturally bent me to love my brothers and sisters in Christ immensely. And I realized that He’s working in all of us to love each other. This love is genuine and true because it comes from Him.
So now I accept this love that has been given to me as something real. I don’t feel the need to go after it and earn it. I don’t feel the need to use this love to replace God. But I accept it as a reflection of His love. Seeing the love of the church for me helps me better understand God’s real and personal love for me as His child.
If you watch that video from Fiddler on the Roof, you should see the way that Tevye’s face lights up when Golde admits she loves him. Our desire for love isn’t a bad thing—it’s part of what makes us human. And what Golde and Tevye realize is that love is more than a newlywed feeling. Their love is built on years of sacrifice.
As a church, our love is built on the greatest sacrifice of all. Christ came down in human form and took the wrath of God that we deserved so that we can have life in Him. Our personal, individual love for one another is just a small picture of the personal, individual love our Savior has shown to each one of us in saving us.
Conclusion
To sum everything up, there are three lessons I learned last summer, and they are changing the way I do community this school year.
First, God’s love for me doesn’t change based on my performance. His love was ultimately expressed in Christ, who came not to save the righteous but to save us when we were helplessly lost in our sin. I don’t need to despise myself when I fall short, because I know I am a beloved child of God.
Second, I learned the importance of genuinely loving others in my life. This is a way we can reflect Christ and share His love. Check your heart. Be real.
Third, I learned to experience God’s love through His people. God shows His love for us through our families, our churches, and individuals in our lives. I don’t need to wonder if people are just “being nice.” I can accept this love as a gift from God.
“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” – Psalm 73:26
What Do You Think?
Have you watched Fiddler on the Roof, worked in customer service, or learned an unexpected lesson about God’s love? Let’s start a conversation in the comments!
I was 15 when I prayed the salvation prayer. My whole childhood full of fear and guilt over mistakes(My parents were very gentle, not strict, never negative. they were great). It wasn’t long after the prayer before guilt and fear departed. Yeshua showed the love of sacrificing Himself for me and answering ridiculous prayers and just being with me. Even though i not only didn’t repent of sins yet, and a whole bunch of new ones started at the age i was. His love was tested by me at every turn, not just sex but witchcraft I was a baby putting every new age teaching in my mouth. He thoroughly loved no matter what! He loved me- A child hurting Him with all I had. Then He delivered me from the rebellion. The dead leaves and fruit were just pushed off the branches by fresh new alive fruit. Yes He really loves you and continues to perfect you til He comes. Thank you for writing this article.
Praise God for His forgiveness and love! Thank you for sharing, Kaytee.
I’ve been kinda learning something along similar lines this year, though it only started to really come out in the last couple weeks. Around the beginning of the year I was starting to try to get help for some physical issues i was/am? having, and hit a point where I knew what the physical issue was but…there wasn’t actually going to be any answers from doctors. (mainly they’d just offer me birth control which I don’t want.) So I asked God to heal me or show me the way to begin the process toward healing. So…He started taking away everything I was busy with. All my regular jobs (i had 3 people i babysat for on a weekly basis) they moved, I stopped getting bookings for face painting, and I wasn’t selling art- only working on stuff to finish up for my book which even that hasn’t gone to plan and so the paper version continues to be unpublished. Then I got pregnant XD which kept me from even pursuing new work because i was sick.
Back when I got married last year I went into a worse struggle spiritually and emotionally. I completely shut down after several years of struggling with trying to keep myself from completely falling into that place of apathy, I stopped actively feeling anything. I /wanted/ to feel things but felt like I couldn’t. Mentally I knew I felt things, but I stopped experiencing the emotion, and almost convinced myself i was content with the way things were, even though i knew I wasn’t and shouldn’t be. I was having depressive thoughts, though i didn’t feel it, I kept hearing in my mind that I didn’t care and started struggling with my belief in God- hearing that my relationship with Him wasn’t worth fighting for, even though I know in my heart He is true and I have seen evidence and not a part of me can deny His existence, my thoughts told me I wanted to not care and simply run away, and my non-existent feelings told me I was stuck, frozen, incapable of anything ever really getting better, and that going through the motions of enjoying life would be good enough.
Back to the physical stuff, being pregnant, i started having different physical issues (most the ones i had before pregnancy actually more or less disappeared upon getting pregnant being period related lol. but as I looked into the issues I was still having I started realizing they were still connected) and about a month ago I started physical therapy to deal with one part of it. Durring the second session the pt asked me if I consider myself an anxious person, and i said no. and she said “Its odd, your body feels very guarded and we haven’t identified the cause of it.” (no trauma, no physical injury, presumably no anxiety, basically any normal option for the cause of my symptoms wasn’t there) around the same time as starting pt i started a bible study, drawing near by john bevere, and about a week after that appointment I ended up breaking down.
I cried for two days and during that time I asked God to show me why I was thinking, feeling, and doing things I didn’t want to be doing, because they didn’t make any sense to me and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it even though I’d been trying all year. I realized that I had been wrong, i was still dead terrified, and I’d shut down emotionally because I was scared of acknowledging how much i was afraid of and had internalized all that fear so deep it was hurting me physically. and I was mainly afraid of failing, of not living up to others expectations, of standing up for the things I believe that are different from my family when it comes to raising my own (especially while living in the same house as them!), of trying to become who i know i’m suppose to be but know i will continue to fail to perfectly be, of being a wife and being a mom, im afraid of my very own feelings because i don’t know how to embrace and communicate them in a healthy way and never have (and had, for some reason, stopped writing poetry the only tool i had previously had to help me make some sense of what I feel) so have either gone from refusing to feel them at times in my life, or being completely overwhelmed by them and I’ve always been afraid one day I’ll lose to them. I even became afraid of fully loving and expressing that love to anyone, and became afraid that if i started to I’d somehow fail in loving too. And even though i’d been telling myself for a few years i no longer struggled with perfectionism, i still do. i’d just found a different way of presenting it. and as i realized i was so afraid and still trapped in perfectionism, i also realized for the first time, why, cause i’ve struggled with fear and perfectionism my whole life in different ways. I realized its cause, though i believe the people around me love me, and that God loves me, I still believe I have to earn that love and that if I do too much wrong I will lose it, and I struggle to really embrace the reality of grace for myself.
and that all happened…last week so like I don’t really know how to proceed from here truly yet. I know things, but now is the process of dealing with it and following how God leads. Luckily, I have a super awesome amazing husband who has always been patient even though it takes me like 3 hours to even be able to say a single word, he doesn’t give up and with God we’re going to figure it out.
Wow. Thank you for sharing, Brianna. <3 It has taken me a while to respond, because I don't know what to say. But thank you for sharing your experience so honestly and deeply. I can relate to so many different aspects, and it is so encouraging to hear what you have learned about yourself after going through so many hard things and hard emotions. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, and fear to love are so real and take time to overcome.
God loves you wholly and unconditionally. He didn't send Christ to the cross to offer you love that you have to earn. Christ died that we could experience His love forever on the basis of who He is and what He has done. You already know this on a knowledge level, but God's love is a free gift. He delights in us accepting it, even in our imperfection and insufficiency.
Emotions can be SO complicated and hard to communicate. I feel you there. Sometimes I want to share something with a friend but I have no idea how to put it into words, and it just stays on my chest. I'm so glad you have a husband who is so patient with you and you can lean on him.
thanks for taking the time to respond and for writing you post. reading it made me think that a good step toward dealing with the fear would be openly talking about it. I ended up writing up a more detailed post for my own bog talking about it and sharing some related poems, which then helped me talk with my mom about it.
Brianna, I’m so glad to hear that. I took a very quick peak at your blog, and your poems are so raw and beautiful. <3 So glad you are able to express yourself and process this way, and that it opened a door to talk with your mom too. Praise God!
I love this, Eliana! I had a similar experience this summer. I worked in retail, not in fast food, but I had many similar experiences to the ones you described. And I agree, there’s something both humbling and eye-opening about being the one behind the counter for once. It’s given me a lot more love and appreciation for both the customer and the employee! It was terrifying as a perfectionist, but ultimately worth it. Thanks for sharing this!
Havalah, so true! Thank you for sharing! It’s definitely such a growing and perspective-changing experience. <3