safe

I have stopped counting the weeks that we have been under “sheltering-in” orders. In the beginning, I found that it gave structure and a sense of progress to our time. Yet as the weeks have passed, I realize that this numbering only adds a sense of expectation, then disappointment, to the mounting numbers of days spent in this season of reduced activity, exposure and…freedom of movement.

A word that has been traveling around media is “safe.” Officials want us to be safe from the coronavirus. They want us to be in a safer place before we proceed in re-opening our stores, schools and churches. This word is like a dandelion seed that is riding on shifting winds, which no one can catch in their hands, but remains elusive, slipping out of our hands with each attempt.

The dictionary lists several different definitions for the word “safe.” At first glance, they seem to denote positive meanings, but like many things, as the ideas sit and percolate, they reveal themselves as less than ideal, and downright dangerous the life of faith that we are called to live as believers.

The dictionary defines safe as “protected from or not exposed to danger or risk; not likely to be harmed or lost.” In other words, shielded or guarded from danger.  This idea brings me back to my six pregnancies, which overall went smoothly and without complication. As a woman, I felt that I was sheltering my baby with the best and most effective form of safety that was God-designed and would give my child the environment and the resources he or she needed to grow and thrive. I remember falling on black ice when I was nine months along in my first pregnancy. I was so thankful for the cushioning of fluid in the sac that that reduced the impact to a few ripples around my growing son. He was safe.

Yet I couldn’t keep my fourth child safe in my womb, and despite all of my care for her and my own body, her genetic deficiencies and then congestive heart failure took her away from us at 22 weeks. The dangers inherent in bringing a baby into the world whole and complete were magnified for me and my husband at that time. We were told to terminate the baby, as her life expectancy was at 2%. We chose to continue, knowing the risks, because we believed that only God could make the choice of death and life. Every life, I began to see, was a complete and total miracle when I stopped to consider all of the factors that work against it from conception.

Life, from the very beginning, in a fallen and broken world, is dangerous. From the time my five children took their first breath, outside of the safety and protection of the womb, there is mounting and numerous dangers that only escalate as they learn to crawl, walk, talk, drive and take flight in the world. With each milestone, we as parents allow our children to move, both emotionally and physically incrementally away from us and in independence. Ultimately, one of our biggest goals as parents is to raise children into independent adults.

My nature is keenly protective of my kids. There have been times when my husband has had to curb my sensitivity to my children’s struggles and potential hurt. As young children, my husband allowed each of our kids to run, jump and climb to an extent that I was not always comfortable with. He taught them how to climb and how to climb back down; then he let them go at it.

As a person who slants towards anxiety and worry, I need to keep a constant watch over my heart and my motivations for acting. My natural bent is not towards aggressive, impulsive risk-taking. Rather, I have had to step out in faith to move, both emotionally and physically, into the wide open places that God has directed me- as a military wife with a husband specializing in Middle East policy. If safety was my main goal and focus, I would not still be married to my husband. I would have missed out on all of the adventures we have enjoyed together, both as a couple and as a family. And I would have missed out on the friendships and relational experiences that I had because I stepped out of fear and into new and somewhat risky situations.

I am fully aware of the term, “helicopter parent,” and how it characterizes a good number of parents of our time, who tend to hover about their kids, so anxious and fearful for their children that they are unable to give them the space and opportunity to both make mistakes or even to fail. This is a small example of a broad sweeping life lesson and spiritual discipline of listening to what motivates and rules our behavior.  We act prudently, and we understand that a part of our responsibility as parents is to teach our kids to act safely, both with themselves and with others. Yet at the same time, we recognize that this is not what I call the “umbrella truth” under which everything else falls. As believers in Christ, we are called to put on love, which unites everything else together and which draws us to the Lord and to each other.

Love, unlike safety, sometimes means taking risks, putting oneself in harm’s way for another, sacrificing my needs for others. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the ultimate act of love, and implicit in His actions were a selflessness and lack of consideration for personal safety. It was love that brought Christ to the cross. This Love has faith in the goodness and the purposes of God, sometimes in spite of the cost.

I want to continually be sharing and witnessing to a life of faith with our children, to teach them what it means to follow and obey Him, whatever the cost. I’ve been reading stories and biographies of survivors of the Nazi regime recently and have been amazed at how their belief in Christ or in some cases, their understanding of what was right, enabled them to make choices even when it put them in great personal danger. 

Every decision in life has its risks because life is about taking risks. In the Bible, ten spies were sent out to scope out the Promised Land. Only two out of the ten came back still willing to step foot back into this land filled with milk and honey, but also enemies that were also giant-sized. Joshua and Caleb didn’t do what was safe, but what was right because they took God at His word that He would be with them and would go before them.

 We need to be careful about how we live, what we expose ourselves to and where we go. We need to be led by wise and prudent thought, asking God to lead and to guide us through the slippery definition of “safety” that our government continues to hold before us and our families. We cannot and should not make safety our focus to the extent that we are afraid of- and thus controlled by- the very thing we are avoiding.  To do this would be to hinder and curtail the magnitude of who we- and our kids- will eventually become and what they are destined to do and be.