Faith and Family

FEAR

Many people talk about fear, there are all kinds of fear, fear of crowds, fear of height, fear of spiders.

Let me tell you however, that I have met fear, it brings tears to my eyes and brings me to bargaining with it. Fear finds its way into the most tender of moments, pushing gentleness out of the way with a cold hand that grips my stomach and makes me aware of its reality.

What is fear? Fear is the strongest in those moments when I have carried my sleeping 5-year-old daughter to bed, gripping her Curious George stuffed animal. In a moment as I look on her sleeping face, loving her so much it hurts, fear says you are too old, too old to have this child, too old …. I know its fear that is speaking because I am healthy, I am strong, oh yes perhaps a few extra pounds, but I am over fifty and she is 5.

So I bargained with fear, calculating that in reality I would have been 46 when I had her and there are plenty of new moms in their 40’s. I bargain and say alright if I have the gift of 30 more years on this earth she will be in her 30’s and will be alright, she will have a gifted and wonderful life. Then I bargain a bit more, maybe I can live longer and have the chance to love her longer and wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Bargain, bargain, but who knows, fear doesn’t talk back it just is and isn’t really happy until a few tears come to my eyes.

But tonight all she knows is that I am Momma and that I love her and carried her to bed. And just maybe it is she who slays fear and tonight I stand by her bedside and let her.