Thunder shakes the house and lightning flashes as sheets of rain come pouring down. It’s the middle of the afternoon, but it’s so dark we start turning on lights in the house. I’m holding my breath, just hoping we don’t lose power.
Just as the storm seems to be calming a bit, an alert pops up on my phone. A tornado might be in the area. We should take shelter. For our household, that means heading to the basement.
In the past, when this has happened, our sons have been a little nervous. This time, however, it’s different. They spring into action with focus and purpose.
“We have to get the birds down-stairs,” our younger son says. Together, the boys hoist our finches’ cage into their arms and start a careful – if slightly precarious – trip down the basement steps. The birds’ drinking water sloshes around in its bowl, and our sons keep an eye on the birds’ single little egg in the nest, as our pets cling to a perch, bewildered by the excitement. Birds and boys make it safely to the basement, and we clear off a table for the cage. We’re so busy checking to make sure the birds aren’t too upset and that their egg is still in the nest that we don’t have any time to be afraid for ourselves.
It occurs to me that that’s how life is sometimes. Focusing on others’ needs helps us step away from our own concerns. Protecting the birds seems to give their young owners courage and strength in a moment that could have been scary.
As they talk to the birds, I find myself thinking back to our children’s fears when they were toddlers. Back then, they might have been scared of statues’ faces and dark corners, swing sets and spiders. Young children aren’t likely to get hurt by those things, but those fears are very real to them. I often wondered why our boys never feared getting injured jumping off the couch or slamming fingers in doors or running away from their mother in a public place, but that was never the case.
It’s very natural, though, to be scared – and to seek comfort and reassurance at those times. When one of our sons was a young toddler, he could only fall asleep while holding my hand or my husband’s. He needed that connection to be able to relax enough to sleep. Some nights I would be dozing off on the floor by his crib waiting for him to be fully asleep so I could slip my hand out of his and creep quietly out of the room to go to bed myself.
At this time of year, as we look ahead to Halloween, we get ready to dress our children – and maybe ourselves – in costumes and decorate our home to confront fear, in a way. A child disguised as a monster or cottony ghosts hanging from a tree puts us in control of things that might be terrifying and makes us smile. That’s what God wants for us, that ability to free ourselves from fear.
After all, God calls us to trust and not be afraid. The truth, of course, is that we have nothing to fear. We have faith in our God who is bigger than any threat we can imagine – and certainly bigger than a virus or a tornado or a scary Halloween costume. And this time on earth is just our temporary – though wonderful – home on our way to eternal happiness with God.
“God’s love calls us to move beyond fear,” said St. Ignatius Loyola. “We ask God for the courage to abandon ourselves unreservedly, so that we might be molded by God’s grace, even as we cannot see where that path may lead us.”
Like children tending to their pets during a tornado watch, may we find ways to move beyond fear and place our trust in God, knowing he walks with us at every moment.
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