Fear Factor: Snakes? Heights? Try Parenting!

When it comes to worrying about my kids, I think I’m a typical parent.

The kind of parent who watches scary movies in his mind.

Here’s one of my favorites: I arrive home and my three-year-old comes running down the driveway to greet me. I am suddenly confronted by this uninvited vision of him tripping and falling on his face. As I gasped aloud, he jumps up screaming to reveal a bloodied mouth and missing teeth.

Of course, this whole sequence happens in a split-second, causing my heart to skip a beat and sending a surge of adrenaline pumping through my veins.

With a quick shake of my head, I chase the nightmare away in time to lift my (uninjured) son into my arms with a big embrace and an even bigger sigh of relief.

Ever see that one? I’ve been told it’s a classic.

As parents who love our children so deeply and are charged by God with the responsibility to care for them, it’s certainly easy and understandable to be worried about their well-being. After all, I can think of few things worse for a parent than the burden of guilt if something were to ever happen.

How often, it seems, we see distraught families on television lamenting over the loss of a child and crying out, “If only I would have….”

This feeling, of course, is relatively new to me. For 25 years B.C. (Before Children), I was never really a fearful or worrisome person. I wasn’t one to fret over problems or to be particularly concerned about safety issues. Now, I hear every crying baby within a ten-block radius.

As the parent of two small boys, I can walk into a room and even the smallest potential hazard becomes illuminated as I survey the scene. It’s like I’ve evolved into some kind of psychic medium on a new television series, “The Parentalist.”

As I enter a room, I immediately begin to notice sharp corners on furniture, small objects within reach, electrical outlets exposed, fragile items, stairs, sliding glass doors, accessible scissors/knives/tools, hard surfaces, tripping hazards, hazardous chemicals, and creepy-looking strangers. And that’s just on the first pass. Give me a moment to walk around and the list is certain to grow.

We live in a society that inundates parents with haunting statistics and sensationalized news items. Every day, there’s a new viral strain or contaminated food supply. We read about the number of sexual predators in our area and listen to the latest Amber Alert over the airwaves. We receive e-mails about some colorful candy laced with hallucinogenic drugs aimed at reaching children. We are continually confronted by a dangerous world.

So our kids sit in car seats, wear bike helmets, carry cell phones with GPS, and constantly clean with antibacterial hand wipes. They stay by our sides at the mall and never leave the front yard at home. We teach them to say no to cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, poisons, peer pressure, and strangers. We teach them how to dial 911 and to stop, drop, and roll.

And yet, we still worry.

One of the great lessons I learned as I first became a parent is that, ultimately, I am not in control. I have a responsibility to be a good steward of the children God has given me, and to exercise proper judgment and discretion, but there are limits as to the extent that I can truly protect my children.

At some point, I have to entrust their safety to God.

If I don’t, I’ll never be able to let go.

I learned this from my first child. A child I won’t get to meet until our heavenly reunion.

After five years of marriage, my wife and I were finally ready to start our family. After a few months of trying, Hannah became pregnant. From the moment I saw the plus sign on the home pregnancy test, I was in love with our soon-to-be son or daughter. In the weeks that followed, we got to hear the heartbeat and see pictures of the baby’s early development. Even at that earliest of stages, I so loved that child that I would have laid down my life for him/her.

My wife and I did everything we knew to do to care for our child. Hannah took prenatal vitamins in the months leading up to the pregnancy and continuing afterwards. She was careful in her dietary choices. She exercised regularly, but not too rigorously.
She avoided stress and got plenty of rest. We obtained regular prenatal care from our obstetrician.

And every night, I laid hands on her stomach and I prayed over our child. Regardless of the specifics of each prayer, I always prophesied two things: life and protection. I declared the life of God over our child and I asked God to protect the mother and child throughout the pregnancy.

And, in spite of all of our best efforts and our diligent prayers, we lost our child in a miscarriage when he/she was just ten weeks old.

One afternoon, I’m excited as I listen to the heartbeat in the doctor’s office. Two nights later, I’m devastated as I hold our lifeless baby in the bathroom.

The night at the hospital and the days that followed were the most difficult of my adult life. It was such a crippling feeling, knowing there was nothing that I could do to save my baby. I would have done anything to change the events of that moment.

In the days that followed, we battled discouragement and guilt as we wrestled with the “what ifs” during the early days and weeks of our pregnancy.

Ultimately though, we had to reconcile our feelings with the reality of God’s Word. We live in a world riddled with sickness, disease, and every form of evil, ushered in at the Fall. As much as we want to protect our children, we live in a dangerous world, and no one is outside of its reach.

Before we could begin the process of trying for a baby again, I had to allow God to heal my heart. I did not want to allow fear to rob me of the joy of a second pregnancy.

I had determined that during each successive pregnancy and from birth until death, I would trust God with my children’s lives.

You see, only faith displaces fear. I have come to realize that God is more capable than I will ever be, so my faith is in Him alone.

That’s not a license I use to be foolish, but rather as liberty to know that all God requires of me is my best. After all, control is really just an illusion. I can’t guarantee the safety of my children, but I can entrust them into God’s hands for their protection.

If they leave this world before I do, I will weep only for my loss, not theirs.

If they leave this world first, they have a head start on eternity with their real Father.

If they leave this world before I’m ready, I will have even more reason to live in such a way as to join them at the end.

There’s already one waiting.

Waiting for our family reunion.