God suggested that I love Her with loyalty, and it didn’t take long for fear of myself to surface. Offering my loyalty to God is essentially agreeing to fail. I will not be perfectly loyal. My loyalty will ebb and flow as it rides the waves of selfishness, embarrassment, and fear. Memories of rejection, and the possibility of future rejection, will poke holes in it. Rejection lends credence to my spectral but faithful companion, shame, who points a judging finger at me, and with her other hand beckons crowds to gawk at my failures, to know I am a fraud. Rejection turns her back on me, not to walk away, but to stay, as a reminder that a back is what I deserve. No face has time for me.

Perhaps loyalty to God involves agreeing there is a face with time for me. It involves looking at His face when I would rather serve time for my crime before I show my face.

Loyalty means I show up in our relationship even when my own divinity seems tarnished beyond the redemptive powers of a polishing cloth, or love.

Loyalty means I give up being the poster child for God so I can be the friend of God.

Loyalty means I will stick with the relationship when I fail, and when God appears to fail.

Loyalty means I will practice allowing myself to be seen, and I might stop to see God, stop when everyone else is running.

Yes, fear of loyalty is fear of myself. But it is fear of God, too. Fear that I will show up at our meeting place and She will not be there. Fear that He is easily distracted, easily frustrated. Fear of misunderstandings and loneliness. Fear that She is greedy and I will never be able to satisfy Her demands. Fear that He’ll like me better when I’m not the way I am right now.

Loyalty involves accepting these fears and allowing them to be in the story, to swirl around my divine center and say their piece. Loving God with loyalty is knowing that She is not the fears or the feelings, the knowing or the not-knowing, the intimacy or rejection. God is the floors and the walls and the roof. She is the foundation holding it all steady. She is the home where our story takes place. Her loyalty begets mine, because these walls see failure, ego, and embarrassment, and they remain standing. These walls also witness joy, inclusion, and peace. They are walls of hope.

And hope is fuel for the next moment of loyalty to God.