Chosen Families

I can’t remember the last time I was afraid. Nervous? Yes. Anxious? Regularly. But nervous and anxious are not the same as that white-hot void in your stomach that materializes when your future is on the cusp of changing for the worse; when your very life hangs in the balance. It’s been some time since I’ve felt that.

When I was 22, I spent a few months between college and law school working a mindless retail job at the mall. One night, during Christmas of that year, I was working a double shift until close. It was well after 11 pm when I got into my dad’s borrowed car in a vacant parking lot to go home.

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.” Luke 2: 8-9

That night, I was over-tired, under-slept, and footsore. In an attempt to save time on my commute, I took a short cut that led me through a wooded area, near the state park. Fast forward to the current day. I’ve recently been issued a citation in the amount of $160 for doing 67 mph in a posted 45 mph zone, so I needn’t tell you that my foot is more lead than flesh, and that on the night in question I wasn’t adhering to posted speed limits. (A proclivity for fast things extends into other areas of my life, as in my riding for example, wherein my trainer has been known to scream, “Slow down! You’re going to kill yourself!!”) On that winter’s night, I may have been doing upwards of 80 mph. The music was up and the windows were down as I struggled to stay awake. I came barreling down the unlit, rural road, and hit my brights.

That’s when I saw it.

Directly in my path – not more than 25 feet in front of me – was a solid line of trees. Not saplings, or skinny birches, mind you. But a stand of meaty, ancient pines with large grey trunks and roots the circumference of duct work. I know, because I got close enough to practically kiss them.

The curve in the road that I had entirely missed had been marked off with a single reflector, and that single reflector hadn’t done me any good at 80 mph. My first thought was, “I will never hear the end of it if I total my dad’s car!” And then, for the first time in my life, I had this thought:

“I might actually die.”

THAT was my first encounter with true fear.

I’d like to think it was my cat-like reflexes that motivated the following thought pattern. If I slammed on the brakes, I would either (1) skid out and hit the trees passenger side first, (2) not gain enough brake leverage to stop in time to avoid a head-on collision with the trees, or (3) some combination of (1) and (2). So, I slammed on the brakes while banking hard to the left in the opposite direction. I had no idea what was to the left of the car, but I was turning there at about 60 mph.

What was to the left was a sedan carrying a couple who had no idea I was about to do a bumper-car spin-out into their driver side quarter panel. And then the clock hands started to slow, and I saw in perfect clarity what I see even now writing this – the glasses and the brown hair of the car’s driver, and the face of his passenger as she began to turn in my direction, no doubt prompted by the headlights shining into her ear. I saw the red tail light of their passing car and then the Ford logo as it pulled away, and I ground to a halt directly behind it.  My head hit the head rest, my bags fell to the floor, the car rocked on its suspension.

But I was alive.

I can think of no other explanation for surviving this kind of a close-call, than that the Lord had physically interjected his hand between the car, the trees, and the passing Ford. I am an awful driver, and an even worse magician. Close-calls like that aren’t just lucky, they’re divinely directed.

“But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.’” Luke 2:10

Do not be afraid.

Apparently the sister who booked herself a double shift during the Christmas shopping season, just to get a little extra scratch and nearly killed her tired, speeding self on the way home thought she could thumb her nose at fear. Then, fear showed her a finger of its own.

Fear – real, suffocating, pit-of-your stomach fear is about the worst feeling in the world. What I hate most about what happened in Newtown, CT at Sandy Hook Elementary is that those children and their teachers were afraid. Afraid in an “I might actually die” way. Afraid like a band of mutton-stinking shepherds when the pitch-black sky burst open and a voice from heaven like a sonic boom cried, “Do not be afraid!” kind of way.

(Footnote: I will save any discussion about the failure of the mental health system in America for a later time. For my part, I do not believe that the Sandy Hook tragedy was wholly due to laxness in American gun control.)

But now my fear, the real kind that makes you want to puke if you weren’t turning the wheel so fast, is what happens to those children who grow up to be Adam Lanza. His was a complex psychological picture and by every account, he was severely mentally ill. His handicaps were invisible. Among his many disabilities was an autism spectrum diagnosis – a diagnosis which the media has used as a lightning rod to establish debate between mental health pundits on whether or not the diagnosis gave Adam a penchant for anti social – and more specifically, violent – behaviors.

The white-hot fear I have now is for my children.

I find that fear is a more regular visitor now that I have children, and my heart walks around outside myself in the form of three blonde children who grew their tiny bodies just under my own ribcage.

I have a son with an autism spectrum diagnosis, with ADHD, with OCD, and with Oppositional Defiance disorder. I have another who may have epilepsy, who was recently described by our neurologist as “severely ADHD”, and who, in conjunction with the foregoing, seems to be expressing some severe behavioral problems that might point to something even more darkly complex. What happens to my boys when they grow up?

I am trembling just a little bit.

“’Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.’” (Luke 2:11-14)

Fear has an effective way of forcing us to listen. When your heart temporarily stops, it’s a great way to get your ears to work. Like when a great company of angels begins a chorus loud enough to strip the wool off the sheep and you think, maybe the baby in the barn might be worth investigating after all.

I am listening to my children. I am watching them closely. I am calling our neurologist and booking appointments at a lightning pace. We are even more motivated now – Matt and I. We refuse to be a statistic or a news story. We remember the place of purity from which our children began their lives, and we remember the One who provided it.  He is the same One who will protect them as they grow, and reward the diligence of the parents who’ve been entrusted to shepherd them. Though we continue to endure close-calls, our family’s path is, and always has been divinely directed.

There is no greater job than to parent these children, and we are privileged to have it. Remembering that helps the fear to fade. I get to take care of these three. What a gift. No matter what their ICD-9 codes are.

“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)

For now, when I’m feeling a tad more rational and I’ve turned off the coverage of the Sandy Hook funerals and the days at school are uneventful with no disciplinary notices smashed deep in the bottom of backpacks, I tuck the fear back into a quiet chamber of my heart, to ponder it for another day when I am feeling less brave. And even then, it will be okay.  Because the baby in the manger made sure it would be.

Sarah