Holding On Too Tight...Learning To Let Go

The summer I was 10, my mom and I went to a women's church league softball game to watch one of my mom's friends play. After the game, a family friend took me home, and my mom went out to get a drink with her friend (a coke, not something from a bar.) I remember asking my mom at the ball diamond where she was going, and she jokingly said "We're going to Oregon." I went home, had a bath, and was ready for bed, and my mom still had not returned home. I was used to my dad getting home late due to coaching responsibilites and evening games, but my mom was never out this late, and I was getting really concerned. I was thinking that maybe she really did leave us and go to Oregon, or maybe she was in a car accident. Of course, eventually she came home that evening (you know how it is when two women go out for a drink and get to talking, especially away from the kids,) and after seeing my distraught face and understanding how scared I was that I was never going to see her again, she assured me that she would never leave us and she would always be there. I can still remember that awful feeling I felt in the pit of my stomach, imagining what life would be like without my mother.

Last Tuesday evening, my brother and I went to Ft. Wayne to do our weekly grocery shopping, and Jason took the girls to his parents while he dropped our camper off at the campgrounds for WMCR. I got home around 9:15, and he and the girls still weren't home. I called his parents' house around 9:30, a little concerned that they weren't home yet because it was a school night. His mom said they had just pulled out of the driveway and should be home shortly. From his parents' house to our house is about a ten minute drive. After about 9 minutes, I waited by the back door, ready to help unload the kids because it was raining and we don't have a garage. Ten minutes passed, then eleven, then twelve. I called his cell phone - no answer. After fifteen minutes I was getting really concerned - what was taking so long? Finally after about twenty minutes, much to my relief, they pulled in the driveway. He had stopped by his office on the way home to pick something up. Again, I can remember that feeling in the pit of my stomach - imagining what would happen if they had been in an accident on the way home.

Last night around 6:30 in the evening at WMCR, I decided to check in on the kids - a wonderful, capable senior in high school with an equally wonderful family was willing to keep our kids for the weekend. There was no answer at the home. I also tried her cell phone, and again, no answer. No big deal, I told myself, I had left the car seats - I had remembered that they had said they may go visit her aunt's family and I had said that was fine with me. At 8:00 I tried both numbers again - no answer. I continued this pattern for the next hour - with no luck. Again, that feeling in the pit of my stomach was there. What if they were in a car accident? How would anyone know who my kids were and who they belonged to? Noone would know to contact us. Then my imagination really started running wild - I've watched way too many CSI shows. My parents are friends with this family, and they knew the aunt mentioned above, so Jason called that home, and sure enough, the kids and the family were there as they had said they would be. The babysitter just hadn't taken her cell phone in with her. Logic told me that the kids were fine - like I said above, this family is wonderful, and I had no doubt that they would take perfect care of the kids. But that feeling of no control, of not knowing for sure, then imagining what may have happened, and if the worst did happen, what would life be like? I know my feelings last night were greatly magnified because of news that was given at WMCR about a youth pastor's family in Michigan - they were involved in a terrible accident yesterday and two lives were lost. The mother in the family watching our kids said something to me that is so true - when something like that happens, you just want to wrap your wings around your own and make sure that they're safe. When the attacks happened on 9/11, Elizabeth was at preschool, and my first instinct was to run over there and take her home, even though the tragedies were happening miles away.

I find at times that I am holding on too tight to the things of this world, and I don't know how to loosen my grasp. Sometimes in bed at night when my mind starts to wander, I imagine all different types of scenarios and how I would react to them. Then I start thinking about reality - that my family members are not always going to be around. And what will that be like? How will I handle it? And I have no control over it. I want to put my kids in a bubble or a safe place where no one can harm or touch them, and yet I don't. I want them to experience life to the fullest and not be scared of what could happen. But I find that I have such a hard time trusting God with what the future holds. I've heard the story behind the song "It Is Well With My Soul." The writer of the song had just learned that his wife and children were on a ship that wrecked, and there was only one survivor in his family - I believe it was his wife. Yet after hearing the news, he sat down and wrote this song. "When peace like a river attendeth my way. When sorrows like sea billows roll. Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul." Well, I do a great job when peace like a river attends my way, but what about if sorrows like sea billows roll. I'm not sure how to get to that place in my life. Sometimes I get scared that God is going to test me - that I have had it too easy so far. Early in our marriage, we had some tough times as all young couples do, but really, our family has been very blessed. And I have such a stranglehold on what makes us "us," that I'm not sure I could be like Paul and say "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." Maybe the context of that verse was talking more about material things than people, but I think the same holds true for both. I know that secret is given in the verse that follows - I just need to have faith that I can have that kind of strength if needed.