We Follow Through Our Fears

It was my son’s second month of kindergarten, and we were walking to our car together after school.

“Robert* has a real gun at home,” he said offhandedly. “He’s going to bring it to school in his backpack to show me.” My blood turned to ice.

“A real one?” I asked. “Did he say when he is going to bring it?”

“Probably tomorrow,” my son said, bending over to pick up a rock and toss it in front of him on the sidewalk, blissfully unaware of the potential drama unfolding in my mind. To my son, guns were only Nerf or waterguns, fun to play with in the neighborhood cul-de-sac. He had never seen a movie shootout or gone hunting. The lethality of which he spoke eluded him.

I called my husband Daryl at work, relayed the conversation, and burst into tears.

“What do we do?” I asked. The decision to send our oldest to public school had been a difficult one. I’d been homeschooled for half of my early education; Daryl had gone to a private Christian school. We were in uncharted waters, yet after months of prayer, we’d both felt peace about this particular school.

The first weeks went swimmingly. His teacher was a gem; he made wonderful friends; he came home bubbling over with information on dolphins and math and Frieda Kahlo, and singing songs in Spanish.

But now maybe Robert was bringing a gun to school. Maybe our decision to send a five-year-old out into the wide world was not faith but foolishness. Hubris.

I called his teacher, who quickly contacted the principal. He promised to call the child’s parents and intervene.

Later that night, Daryl and I prayed, our hands resting on our children’s sleeping brows, the line from the hymn “Lead On, O King Eternal” running through my mind: we follow not with fears.

 But I had fears. Lots of them. It is all too easy to live in fear. From mass shootings to winter flu bugs to natural disasters, there is much to fear. Disasters happen. Children can—and do—die.

Yet somehow God calls us to follow him in trust, walking hand and hand with the one who created us and loves us. How are we to do such a thing in such a world?

I thought back to when our oldest was just a tiny baby and a terrible sleeper. For half a year, he woke every hour or two to nurse.

“He’s underweight,” our pediatrician said. “If he’s getting up to eat, he’s hungry.”

Those nightly marathon nursing sessions turned me into a zombie, but then finally, seven or eight months into his life, our son began sleeping a bit better. We moved him into his own room, away from the tiny crib at the side of our bed. He slept, but I didn’t. I popped out of bed three, four, five times a night to check on him.

“SIDS is real,” I told Daryl. “What if he’s not breathing in there?”

“Honey,” he said, patiently rubbing my shoulders, “you have to sleep.”

 

“Promise me he will be okay!” I said through tears.

“I can’t promise you that,” he said. “I can promise you that we’ve done everything possible to make sure his crib and room are as safe as can be. And Jesus is in that room. He loves our son even more than we do.”

Now, Jesus is in that school, Daryl and I told ourselves. He loves our son more than we do. He loves each and every one of those children even more than their own parents.

 Hours later, we got a call from the principal assuring us that Robert’s parents didn’t own a gun, and that when he spoke with Robert, the sweet five-year-old explained that he was excited to bring his new LEGO set to school to show his friends.

“It has a gun,” he said.

“But not a real gun,” the principal said, double-checking.

“It is real!” Robert protested. “It’s a real LEGO gun that shoots real LEGOs!”

Scripture never tells us there is nothing to fear. All we need to do is turn on the news for thirty seconds and we will be bombarded. There are very real things to fear. Yet there is a God greater than all we might fear.

“God is our refuge and strength,” writes the psalmist. “An ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea” (Psalm 46:1-2 NIV)

My world could have been forever shaken that day. I’ll praise God until the day I die that Robert’s gun was made of LEGOs. Yet even when the earth trembles and the mountains crash down around us, God is still present.

Let us cling to that and give this great God all our fear. And when we can’t, let us follow through our fear.

What fears are you facing in your life today? How is God a refuge to you?

*Name has been changed

Courtney Ellis is a mom of three, speaker, and author of Uncluttered: Free Your Space, Free Your Schedule, Free Your Soul and serves as a Presbyterian pastor in southern California, alongside her husband, Daryl. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, or at www.courtneybellis.com.

Photograph © Xavier Mouton Photographie, used with permission