As I wave two happy, excitable girls off to school today, a family that I know are preparing to say goodbye to their sweet son. At the tender age of 5 he is already heaven-bound.
I cannot fathom their impending loss. My brain will not even entertain it, the impact impossible to process. Just thinking about it makes it hard to breathe. It is every parent’s worst nightmare. And yet it happens to people all over the world, every single day.
It’s not something we typically want to dwell on, is it? Yet nevertheless it is never too far from our thoughts. From the very first moment our little babes took their very first breath, it was there. Right alongside that fierce, first rush of love, there was fear. Fear that we might one day lose them.
It can become an insatiable beast within us, this fear. Growing every day with the strengthening bond of motherhood, it keeps us up at night—haunting our waking hours, coloring our decision making and stealing our joy.
This is not God’s design. He did not give us a spirit of fearfulness (2 Timothy 1:7) but calls us instead to fight our fear with faithfulness—and trust Him.
Trust Him with the precious lives He has so generously entrusted to us. They were His first remember— we tend to forget that detail…
Trust Him with the what if’s of an unknown future. He has seen our tomorrow, and He walks with us through it.
Trust That He is always good— no matter what. That even in the very worst situation, there is reason to praise Him, hope to hold onto, and joy to be found.
The reality is that life is scary and unpredictable and unfair. I cannot control every detail and there are no guarantees. So I turn to Him—my steady rock, my anchor in the storm. And I surrender my fears one by one, at the foot of the cross.
In Him alone there is victory over our fears. In Him alone, there is peace.
If only we choose to trust.
“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you” (Psalms 56:3).
