January Blog A Day: #5 Biggest Fear

I don't like to dwell on my fears.  I don't tend to get bogged down by them.  Sure, I have fears just like everyone else does, but living a life of fear and worry doesn't change anything except to make you miserable.

The fears are there if I think about them.  I just don't allow them to have power over me.

Chief among those is the fear of losing James or one of my kids, or all of them.  I know that God holds us all in the palm of His hand, but sometimes He allows things to happen that bring great grief, and it can be so hard to decide to say "Whatever happens, I will trust the Lord and still obey and love Him."  I don't believe that God is vindictive or doesn't care, but really lousy things happen in life, even to people who are kind and serve God and treat others with compassion and seem destined for sainthood.  Still, I will choose to trust God because I know that He will work all things for my good.  I also know that this life is not all there is, and that what comes after is beyond my imaginings and full of glorious great things.

But back to my biggest fear.  It was really brought home to me in November, when we found Ben on the floor in his room, at the end of a seizure without ever having had a physically apparent seizure to our knowledge.  We'd never seen anything like that from him, and to walk into his room and find him stretched out rigid, laying next to where he'd vomited, murmuring and twitching was frightening.  Then when I picked him up and he was still stiff and wouldn't respond in any way no matter what we tried, it was terrifying.  I sat there rocking him for a minute, tears streaming down my face, wondering if my little boy was slipping away from us, if I was holding my dying son.  Then I thought what if he survives, but the Ben we know is just gone forever?

Autism has been a hard road for us to take, but we've had so much joy in living with Ben and have learned to celebrate the small things.  We also know that we are blessed to have a boy who loves to laugh and gives hugs and kisses, because so many kids with autism are unemotional, and their families have to work really hard just to get them to allow any kind of physical affection.  He interacts with us a lot more than many children with autism do.  To lose that would have broken my heart.

There are other things I fear, too.  I'm afraid that Ben won't progress cognitively beyond a young toddler, and what that will mean if he's still acting out physically when he's a teenager or man.  It's sad to give up on your dreams of your child growing up, becoming independent, getting married, having a family, enjoying a career - but it's harder to hold onto those dreams right now.  I'd rather think that they probably won't happen while working hard to help Ben succeed as much as possible, and then be thrilled if they do.  I don't think that's being pessimistic, just realistic and realizing that it may not happen.

Sometimes I fear dying and leaving my family to get by without me.  I hope that doesn't sound arrogant, but I think it would be tough for James to parent our children without me, and Rachel would have such a hard time dealing with it, and Ben would really feel a void, too.  Then there's fear of dying in a really painful way.

In the field of less morbid fears, there are things like living my life poorly, in a way that is just mediocre.  Not living in a way that pleases God and makes Him say "Well done, good and faithful servant."  Being a wimp when it comes to trying to share my faith with people.  Why is that so hard?  Why do I feel so self-conscious about it?  Not parenting Rachel well enough, in the way that she needs so that she will be a well-adjusted preteen, teenager and adult.  Having a void grow between Rachel and me as she gets older and chomps at the bit of her mom's...mothering. (Not smothering.  Mothering.)

I've learned in the past few years that looking at the next few decades, or even next few years, is too overwhelming.  Heck, sometimes even looking at the next few weeks is overwhelming when we're going through a rough patch with one or both kids.  So I've learned to take one day at a time.  If it's a hard day, just get through that day.  Tomorrow is a fresh start and a chance to do things differently, or choose to respond differently, or to look for ways to turn around a situation.

I can't look at the big, overwhelming picture of life and consider all the what-ifs, or I would go crazy.  So I will determine to live each day to the best of my abilities, to try to see people and love people as God loves them, to ask Him to make me more like Him, to love my husband and children and family and friends, to do what I can to feel good about something I've accomplished that day, and to give myself a break on the days where it's just about surviving, knowing that tomorrow is a new day.

And when fears try to creep in, I will claim this verse:
"For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." (2 Timothy 1:7)