Sunday Stillpoint: Surrendering Fear

"…Ultimate faith is not in or upon anything at all. It is complete letting go…such letting go cannot be attained. It cannot be acquired or developed through perseverance and exercises…Letting go comes only through desperation. When you know that it is beyond you--beyond your powers of action as beyond your powers of relaxation…THAT is the mighty self-abandonment which gives birth to stars."
--Alan Watts, "Beyond Theology"

These are scary times we are living in, but for me, having a child fighting in a war is absolutely the most terrifying thing I have ever experienced. I don't know any other service mother who doesn't feel the same way, but I do know some who actually feel GUILTY for being afraid, because they think they should have more faith somehow. They think they should be able to entrust their child into God's hands and not think about it anymore--and they try, they really do--but they just can't help but be afraid.

I have one Marine mom friend whose husband is always telling her, "God will take care of him," as if that answers everything, and his tone, as much as he loves her, is gently scolding, as if somehow she is doing something wrong by worrying.

But the thing is, all service mamas pray for their babies overseas, and not all of their children come home, or at least, come home in one piece. Some come home in flag-draped caskets and some come home onboard hospital flights, and that's the cold terrifying truth of it.

Was God not listening to the prayers of THOSE MOTHERS? Did they pray the wrong way, or read the wrong Bible, or not have STRONG ENOUGH faith? Did they go to the wrong church, or no church at all, or did they not go often enough?

These are the thoughts that go through a service mother's mind in the depths of night, or when the phone rings at a weird hour, or when they glimpse a strange car coming slowly down the street.

Being afraid for your child does not mean you have a weak faith. It merely means you are HUMAN. The truth is that almost everyone in this situation--unless they reside in some powerful place called "denial"--most everyone is afraid.

Most of the time, fear is a gift in the human being. Healthy fear can help us avoid danger or heed sensible doubts or sidestep trouble. Fear can save our life. If we feel a lump in our breast and our blood chills in fear, it is the healthy thing to do to schedule a doctor's appointment immediately and make sure everything is all right. Does that mean we don't pray that everything will be all right anyway? Of course we do. But we don't just pray and go on about our daily lives, not if we are blessed with common sense. We pray and then we ACT on our fears, and in so doing, many lives are saved.

This is why God gave us fear. We should be grateful for it, and not punish ourselves for feeling it.

The problem comes when fear crosses over the line into obsession or addiction. The problem comes when we allow our fears to paralyze us. An example would be agorophobics, who never step foot outside their house because they are afraid, or obsessive-compulsives who fear germs so much they wash their hands until they bleed. The problem comes when we feed our fears, like adding kindling to a fire, until they consume us and keep us from living healthy lives.

This, I am quite certain, was not the good Lord's intent when He gave us what security expert Gavin de Becker calls "the gift of fear."

My son often says, "I don't want you to worry. Worrying is my job." He means that, when he's on patrol with his team, it's his job to be vigilant for any lurking danger and do what he can to protect his team and get them back to their post safely. That's his job; it's what he has trained for, and he's very good at what he does.

But I haven't been trained, so it's not my job, he's saying, to fret and worry that he might encounter some terrible danger while out on that patrol. It's not my job.

Unfortunately, my son doesn't quite GET that, as mothers, it WAS our job for many years to protect our children. Just because they cross the threshold into adulthood doesn't mean that the powerful protective instinct we relied on all those years to get them to that point, suddenly cuts itself off in our heads. We still want to protect them, and that may be unreasonable, but there you have it.

We're moms, and for many years, that was OUR job.

So here we are, we service moms, living phone call to phone call, avoiding the news if that's our coping strategy, obsessing over it if it's not, putting together care packages and writing letters and praying, oh God, praying that our child will come home safely to us.

How do we protect OURSELVES from OUR OWN FEAR?

I'm afraid they don't manufacture any Kevlar vests for that purpose. There is no armor you can order online to protect you from that fear.

There are little things we can do, steps we can take. In her book, Positive Energy: Ten Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress, and Fear into Vibrance, Strength, and Love, Judith Orloff, M.D., gives a number of common-sense strategies for dealing with fear, like taking a moment to think on something that you find soothing and calming, or finding something you can laugh at, or watching a movie or other distraction, or giving to others in an active way--taking yourself out of yourself, so to speak. She also suggests spending time in nature, and practicing what she calls, "self-compassion," which is simply not being too hard on yourself. Meditation, of course.

I've tried and used all of these strategies at one time or another and they are all effective, but none of them is particularly permanent. When the movie ends or your day in the soup kitchen is over…the fear comes seeping back in like a silent stain.

It could be something on the news that triggers the fear, or hearing about the death of another service-person, or simply not hearing from them for several weeks while they are "out in the field."

And it's times like that, when none of the little tactics you've tried seem to help, and "meditation" consists of nothing much but scattered thoughts chasing themselves round and round in your head…that there is only one thing to do, and that is SURRENDER.

There are times that, weeping, I'll just pray, "Please, take my fear."

I picture it in my mind like a big heavy backpack. Sometimes I'll play little mind-games where I visualize doing things like, putting the backpack into a hot-air balloon and watching it rise up into the sky.

You just have to hand it over.

I confess that, on bad days, even that sometimes doesn't seem to work for very long, but if there is one thing I have learned about living with fear, it is this: There are bad days and there are good days.

Tomorrow will be bound to be better, and if it's not, then I do know one thing: the God who will be with my child in his dark shadowy places, is the same One who will be with his mama through hers.