On fear

Early one morning this week I received a frantic knock on my door.  I haphazardly fell out of bed and opened the door to find one of the girls sobbing in the hallway.

            “What’s wrong?”

            “I had a bad dream and I’m scared of monsters,” she managed between sobs.

            I gave her a hug and began to walk her back to bed.  I sat on the edge and began to talk to her.

            “You know what, L—?  Those monsters you’re afraid of, they aren’t real.  The devil wants you to think of them and be afraid because he loves it when you’re scared.  But God doesn’t want you to be scared.  That’s why he sent Jesus to conquer the devil and your fear.  Because Jesus came, we don’t have to be afraid anymore because he loves us and will protect us.  So let’s pray and ask God to give you peace and help you to sleep.”

            We prayed, I lent her a teddy bear to sleep with and then crawled back in bed myself.

            Since I’ve been back, fear has been popping up fairly frequently.  A little girl wanting to shimmy up the tether ball pole, but afraid of falling; one girl afraid of drowning in the pool; me being afraid that if the girls leave and I’m not there to watch them, they won’t be cared for; all of us being afraid of being left alone as teams and children come and go and a few of us stay behind.  As each of us encounters fears, we decide how to react, either to become paralyzed or to move forward in love by faith.

            I’ve noticed that most times our fears aren’t completely ridiculous, and as I work with the girls, I love letting them know that and showing them how to move forward even though their fears are real.  Take for example the girl who was afraid of drowning.  She didn’t know how to swim and the pool went over her head in a few spots.  Her fear of drowning was legitimate.  While I talked to her, I never said that her fear was silly and it was impossible for her to drown, but I reminded her that I, who knows how to swim, would be by her side the whole time, watching her.  This reassured her enough that she hopped in the pool and eventually even dared to join her friends who were a little farther away from me.

            As I look back at this example, I can’t help but think that God likes to treat us similarly.  My worries are many and various, and when I read my Bible and pray to God, I never hear him say, “These are unfounded fears, they couldn’t possibly happen.”  I hear him softly whisper in my ear, “Cast your burdens on me; I will never permit the righteous to be moved.”  He affirms their weight, but asks me to trust more in his power.  When he does this, he’s not simply asking me to believe that trials aren’t difficult or that they won’t come at all; he’s asking me to trust that his redeeming purpose in the midst of difficult circumstances can lend a sweetness to the bitter, a sweetness that surpasses and outlasts all bitterness.  God recognizes my susceptibility to fear and addresses it, not by dismissing it, but by encouraging me to grow through it.

            I won’t lie; recently watching seventeen kids leave the ranch over a two day period brought a plethora of fear into my life.  Some fears were new, some were old, but all were weighed and cared for by my God.  I can’t be sure that the kids will be safe and taught truth.  I have no way of knowing the exact details of their lives.  But I do know the One who ordains their lives, and I know that he is unfailingly good.  One day I may even have the chance to see or hear about these kids, and I know that even then, I may not be able to say, “Ahah!  I’ve found God’s goodness in this situation.”  The undeniable truth is that I am not God.  I will never be able to understand his ways or fathom his wisdom.  But that does not negate his goodness.