When you just can't trust

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Of all people, I get his fears. Like him, I went to bed most of my childhood nights with a sheet over my head, my body curled away from the door (in case they attacked, they'd be further from my heart). The shadows mocked me, disappearing when I flipped on the light and dancing when I turned it off. They were monkeys, snakes, evil attackers with long noses and beady eyes. The window next to my bed was a break-in portal; all someone had to do was climb a ladder and use one of those glass-burning tools to silently open my window and I would be all theirs. My parents sleeping the floor above would never know until the morning.

Night after night, thoughts like that stormed my mind, and no amount of sleepytime tea, reading, soothing music, or praying seemed to help. So his three-year-old words to me the other night, "I'm trying to trust Jesus and it's just not working"--I knew that feeling. That feeling of silence on the other end of the Universe when He's promised He's there.

We do a lot of memorizing scripture about fear around here--partly because I still need it and partly because I'm convinced that nighttime fears often have a satanic element to them. Jesus fought Satan with scripture; so will we. But those scriptures can be so tough:

"Fear not, for I am with you" (Isaiah 41:10). How do you just NOT FEAR? What do you do when you fully believe He is with you AND you are still fully fearful? What does that say about me?

"When I am afraid, I will trust in you" (Psalm 56:3). My son's statement is mine: "I'm trying to trust, but it's not working. I'm still afraid. I'm still doubting."

"He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart" (Psalm 91:4). What happens when it seems like God isn't protecting us with his fathers as a mother hen would protect her chicks? What's God up to when bad things happen, when He doesn't keep us from harm?

Tough, tough questions, folks. Really tough questions to explain to a three-year-old. But I'm learning to let him see me struggle with them as well, to seek God even when He doesn't make sense.

When my boy is cowering under his covers and falling asleep in tears, my heart identifies, and it breaks. I want him to experience deep peace and trust, and it'd be so much easier just to stay in his room until he falls asleep or let him sleep in my bed with me, but doing that wouldn't teach him to trust in Jesus; it'd teach him to trust in me. There's an element to parenting that is me modeling Jesus for him, and so I comfort and pray and listen. But I can't be Jesus for him. If I stayed every night until he fell asleep, he'd never have an opportunity to trust. I can give him tools to fight the darkness (and we have--flashlights, night lights, prayer, scripture, logic, coming back to check on him incrementally, etc.), but I can't fight it for him. At some point, he has to put into practice what he's learning. He has to trust that Jesus is who He says He is: that He is with us even when He feels absent, that He is bigger than evil, even when evil seems to have the upper hand.

Trust--it's about the hardest thing to do, isn't it? So much perceived risk to believe in what's unseen but sure. It's the original sin: not trusting that God had their best in mind, Adam and Eve tried to circumvent Him by taking matters into their own hands.

I see him struggle night after night and I remember those years of nights of my own, and all I want to do is take those fears away. But that's it's own kind of distrust and control, the idea that I can somehow fix and save him. When I can step back and get perspective, more than anything, I want him to know his need for Jesus, and to be able to experience God's presence and faithfulness in the fears. And if that's true, letting him struggle may be the greatest gift I can give him, and me.