Solid Ground

Today I found out that a friend of mine lost her father yesterday to a heart attack. A few days before that, two boys I went to school with died in a car accident.

As I have come to love my children with a deep and fierce protective passion, I also have picked up a new burden of anxiety. Every day, I tell the children that I will protect them, whether from the angry bee or the ghost that haunts Little Wound Elementary, they know that their teacher will stand up for them. But even as I say it, I know that it really isn't true. I can't protect them. When they leave my classroom, they are at the mercy of so many evils--at least some of them are. There is a funeral nearly every week in Kyle. What if something was to happen to the families or, God forbid, one of my children? I have been nearly choked with anxiety while thinking of this. I think I am beginning to understand what my parents feel when I go live in poverty-stricken areas around the world. It is a fear that what you love most, what you hold so dear, might be taken from you. Sometimes I wonder if the love or the fear is stronger.

But I have a choice. I can take up this additional yoke or I can bring to Jesus. You see, I don't want to live in fear. And right now, I am listening to they beautiful song by the Gettys "In Chirst Alone." And you know what, that is what I think it comes down to. Christ alone can protect the children. He loved them first, He will love them longer and He loves them deeper. He will take care of them. And if tragedy does strike, I can rest in the blessed assurance that God is still good and still in control. Christ is my solid ground. I will not be shaken.