What if?

A few months ago, I did a Beth Moore study on Esther. One major theme that stuck out to me:  Esther was faced with a terrifying situation, watch her people be massacred; or face near-certain-death in revealing herself to be one of them, a Jewess, and trying to defend them. After clearly struggling with this impossible decision and having everyone pray and fast for her, she emerges, proclaiming, "If I perish, I perish." One lesson from this seems to be that even when we face our worst fears, God is present. Amen.

So then I was more recently considering the story of Jonah. And again, we have a worst fear realized, going overboard in a ship during a storm and being swallowed by a whale. I was afraid of swimming in deep ends in the dark when I was a kid because I was so terrified of creepy creatures in watery depths, even in man-made-pools (creative imagination I guess). I can not imagine the horror Jonah must have felt as he watched those jaws closing in around him. And perhaps again, we learn the same lesson. Even in the belly of the whale, God is present. Amen.

So what is your worst fear? Which "What if?" keeps you from moving forward with boldness into a place you should perhaps be stepping into? Here are a few of my worst fears, other than being attacked by deep-water creatures of course:
"What if those people reject and ridicule me?"
"What if I have to make it on my own without my husband?"
"What if my child dies?"

So the crazy thing about Jonah, is that in subjecting Jonah to a-worst-possible-thing, God was also preserving his life so that he could live out the most-glorious-thing. Thrashing around in the ocean during an intense storm? So many ways a body could drown and die in a scene like that. But Jonah didn't die.

I think of the book Outliers, or, because I was too lazy to read this as a book, the documentary film series, Guns, Germs, and Steel. One of the major take-a-ways for me in both of these was that the people who had endured the roughest suffering, came through as greater stars, as stronger survivors, or as more useful and potentially God-glorifying tools (that's my own imposition on the raw material there).

Perhaps: It is not in spite of the whale that Jonah becomes a hero, it is not because he was punished in the belly of the whale that Jonah learns his lesson, but it is because God used the most terrifying prospect to preserve Jonah that he might be able to go on to do God's work. Just like so many other biblical heroes. And scarier still, just like He might do for me some day.

My prayer: if the day comes that I have to face one of my worst "what if?" I hope I will be able to respond and say, "If I perish, I perish," and have faith that the realization of my worst fears might actually be an instrument of protection and preservation from the fears I could not even have imagined, like missing an opportunity to participate in God's glory.

an admission of complete wussiness.

An earthquake woke me up last night, and there was another this morning. They were both in the mid 4 range - the first felt like the dog was vigorously scratching himself on the bed, thus making the whole thing shake; the second just felt like a dizzy spell until I noticed some of our dangling decorations swaying and then it felt like the house was bobbing in the ocean. 

As a born and bred Southern California girl, I'm supposed to play it cool. I'm supposed to love these things and equate them with roller coasters. I'm supposed to laugh at and openly mock out-of-towners who are bewildered when the ground tremors. And I play the part most of the time. When we had an earthquake in Virginia I truly did find it hilarious when, immediately after it happened, newscasters were seeking out Californians to verify if that was, indeed, one of those "earthquakes" of lore. 

Virginia 2011 Earthquake: We Will Rebuild
Photo borrowed from here.

But the truth is this: I am terrified of earthquakes. They fill me with dread and too much adrenaline. My overactive imagination sees a gaping chasm opening up in my own house, swallowing my family. Then, when I calm down a bit I imagine more realistically that our house will completely collapse and become rubble. Optimistically, I envision all of us cowering under the one doorjamb that remains standing. After the quake last night, I remained awake for some time thinking about the logistics of losing all material possessions when one has a baby. We'd need a bottle, plenty of milk, diapers. I tossed and turned and briefly considered researching disaster relief organizations just to confirm that someone could hook us up in a pinch. I tried counting sheep to get back to sleep, but the louts kept jumping at me instead of peacefully gliding over a low fence in a distant lea. Even my subconscious was in shambles from a little rumble.

I leave you with a sweet little anecdote from my childhood. It was 4:30 in the morning on January 17, 1994 (thanks, wikipedia!). Skeeter - my dog who slept with me each night and looked remarkably like Splinter - started barking and hopping around the bed. Then an earthquake struck, and my waterbed (yeah!) sloshed and swished and my door rattled. A few seconds later, my mom came into my room to make sure I was okay and to comfort me. My dad, assigned to check on my sister, instead sprinted out of their room in his skivvies, expressing deep concern for...his guitar. And he has never lived it down. 

Don't worry, both the guitar and my sister were totally fine.

I'd love to know what turns you into a wuss. Or your favorite natural disaster. Or about your parent trying to save an inanimate object.

Looking back, Looking forward

On New Years Day, in visiting a dear friend, we got to introduce our babies to each other. Except my baby isn't a baby any more, and her baby was truly a baby, only two weeks old at the time. What a blessing. What a joy life is. What a mystery, how life comes to be. All mixed together were my sympathies for a difficult labor, my ecstasy for the abundant love coursing between mother-child-husband-father-wife, my appreciation for a husband who cared so lovingly for my dear friend, my respect for a woman who cared so lovingly for her child, my comfort at seeing an old friend, and an intense sense of overwhelm in realizing that we were once there(ish) and are now in such a different place.


Somehow, for me, this picture [above] captured so much of what I was feeling. Sofia, neck firm, brain spinning with curiosity, eyes at attention, discovering, wondering, learning independently about this baby whose only volition is to absorb her mother's love and care and neck support. Were we ever there? New parents, just home with a newborn, minds still spinning from labor and sleep deprivation and joy and wonder and shock. Less than a year before that day, we were there, and yet I can barely fathom it, barely bring back that memory from the fog.


It occurred to me that throughout my whole pregnancy, I did no let myself believe there would actually be a baby at the end of the process. I was so fearful, no, so sure, that I would miscarry like my maternal grandmother. When we got past the point of miscarriage being possible, I became convinced I would deliver a still born like my paternal grandmother. When had to go to the hospital because the baby I was pregnant with was in distress, there was a real part of me preparing for leaving that hospital empty handed. But I did not. I walked out of that hospital with a fragile life-filled baby in arms. I hugged my nurse goodbye, and went home and filled my house with all that love I was witnessing a year later in my friend's cottage by the sea. But, I had thought, that was already more than I deserved. Certainly, it had all been too good to be true. Certainly, SIDS would find us, and it was only a matter of time before I lost my precious. (don't think the Lord of the Rings allusion in that term, and the desperation and idolatry that surrounds it wasn't lost on me each time I uttered it over my child)


But a year later, there I was, witnessing my lively daughter, witnessing another new life. At what point will I accept this gift? Why do I instead accept these shackles of fear so readily? When will I accept this life that has been given to me. When will I let myself look forward, to dream for her future, wonder what life holds for her? When will I stop holding my breath, paralyzed in the present moment, fearful that it will vanish like the air I refuse to exhale?


For a time I did not believe she'd ever smile at me. For a time, I couldn't imagine she would ever sit up on her own. I believed she would sleep swaddled in wings forever. I was convinced she would spend eight hours a day nursing for eternity. As each stage came, I settled into it as if it were my new, permanent way of life. Perhaps I'm so busy adjusting to each change, that this underlying shift is too much to grasp: life is forever changing. Certainly there is a sense in which this year has been nothing but a series of goodbyes. Gone are the days of supporting her neck, supporting her sitting, swaddling her arms,  and holding on tight with two hands while she tries to walk. Gone are the days of sleeping in, of spontaneous carefree choices about how to spend my time, long extended periods of quiet ended only by my own choice. It has been a year of endings. 


And the endings will continue to come, some possible and some certain. My fears are not fully irrational. But the problem has been that I have not been able to see beyond them. They have blocked my view. It is true. My daughter, our love, it is more than I deserve. 


And yet, it has also been a year of constant beginnings. Hello to the intimacy of three, not just two. Hello to new discovery, new laughter, new joy. Hello to a new me, less concerned with me. Hello to a new husband, exuding more love, more devotion. Hello to a new home, new friends, an entirely new way of life. 


My present is beautiful, it is precious. And still, I must learn to loosen my grasp, to hold it more lightly. Because without my hands open, I can not receive what the future holds, what my true Precious has in store for me. For He desires to give me every good gift. But when my fingers wrap tight, when my knuckles burn white, how can the gift come in? 


What if a year ago I refused to move forward into a future where she smiled at me? What if I didn't let her learn to sit up, roll, crawl, walk? What if I did not let her away from me, unclasped from my arms? Then she could not come running back into me, arms wide open, outstretched, to receive her smiling-giggling-leaping little self, crashing into me with a force of love I've never known. 

Life is perpetually coming to be. I need to open my arms to receive this. I need to open my mind; I need to humble my heart, realizing I don't know where the new joy might be coming from. It is only mine to release and to receive. I need to open my eyes, see past the fear, and allow myself to look forward to what new life is yet to come.