Moms Struggling with Fear for Their Children During the COVID-19 Pandemic

An Ancient Story for a Modern Mom

This fall, my family and I were outside of our cape cod home raking the New England leaves into a big pile for glorious jumping. It was truly a perfect moment. My husband was on the deck overseeing the yard, watching his family with a smile of pride. My bright-eyed 2 year-old (with the longest eyelashes you’ve ever seen) was running around in all his innocence and in all his joy. I felt safe and happy and content, as I raked a pile of leaves bigger and bigger for my children. When the pile was just perfect, I turned toward my 4-year old daughter and my 2-year old son to announce the pile was ready. As I turned, I saw my 2-year old running full speed with his head down into our cement landscaping wall. I screamed for him to stop, but it was too late. He had practically knocked himself out and blood was covering his entire face.

His collision flipped a switch in my brain. The switch labeled PTSD was now “on.” In just one second, I went from being in a state of complete safety to being in a state of complete panic. I had just published a book about, in part, how God gives us the ability to rewire our brains, but in this moment, there was absolutely nothing I could do to redirect my thoughts or to stop the chemicals that were rushing through my body.

I cried hysterically. I shook. I felt cold inside my bones. I couldn’t think clearly. I couldn’t speak clearly. I had, in some sense, lost my mind. My son’s face looked bad upon first glance, but once we got him cleaned up, we realized he was fine. I, however, wasn’t. My reaction was so disproportionate to his injury. I couldn’t control it. I knew it was overly dramatic, but I couldn’t stop. I was reacting as if he had died. He didn’t even break his nose. A pink butterfly icepack decreased his swelling as he happily laid in our bed watching superhero Pez dispensers on Youtube within 10 minutes of his crash.

I’ve been a follower of Christ for 21 years. I have been consistently studying the Bible and talking to God in this time. In so doing, God has changed my life and renewed my mind. He has restored things in my life that were beyond repair. Through my relationship with Jesus, I have found healing, help, and wisdom for all of life’s messiness and all of my brokenness. I am not who I was before I started following Christ. I was alive before, but I am truly Living now. But here’s the thing: we’re all a work in progress, regardless of where we are on our journey with God. If we are truly seeking Him, we will always be growing. My disproportionate reaction was God showing me that I had some growing to do. I thought I was all grown up in this “area,” but it took my little boy running face first into a brick wall to show me otherwise. Maybe COVID-19 is showing you this? Which “area” did I need to grow in? The part of me that feared death.

My grandfather’s father died an untimely death. My grandmother died an untimely death. My father died in a car accident. I was raised in fear and emptiness because of untimely death. I carried fear of my own death with me for my entire 20’s. Every time I got sick, I ran to the doctor. I googled things until I thought I had every disease on the planet. I worried about just about everything. In my 30’s, God began to show me that each time I ran to a doctor to fix myself, I wasn’t trusting that He would actually keep me alive. I also was simply treating symptoms. God showed me that it was time to start treating the actual problems. So, I walked through some really difficult stuff with a smart and gifted Christian counselor who helped me find healing and peace. Empowered by God’s love for me, through counseling, studying the Bible, prayer, small groups, and being honest with myself, I conquered many of my fears and doubts. I found freedom from my shame and blame of others. I thought I was all healed up. Time to move on with life. I was doing great. And then, bam! Jace ran into a brick wall and all this ugly fear spilled out.

I asked God what in the world was going on inside of me. I reminded Him that we had already worked out my fear of death, and that we had broken destructive generational cycles. I asked Him what I was so afraid of.

Slowly, through studying the Word, I began to see that I trusted God with my own life, but I didn’t trust him with my kids’ lives. Ouch.

I began to realize that since my children were born, I have been under the delusion that I am in control of their lives and that somehow I can do something to gain control over their deaths. I began to realize that I believed that I should/could/ought to keep them safe from harm all by myself in my own power. That if I worried enough about them and thought things through well enough, I could prevent harm from reaching them. I was acting as if I was God over them, and as a result, I had A LOT of fear. I realized being afraid for their well-being was my normal thing: I was afraid when I watched my oldest play football or snowboard. Afraid that when I was making decisions about parenting them, I was making a terrible mistake. Afraid that I put them in the wrong school in the wrong district. Afraid that when we moved from one state to another, I screwed up their lives. The list of fears just kept running and running. When we find ourselves this afraid, there is disorder in our mind or in our life somewhere. Somewhere, something important is out of place. God did not design us to be afraid. He commands us otherwise. All of His commands are non-negotiables from our loving Heavenly Father for our benefit.

I believe fear is a cue to turn back to God and ask Him for clarity and perspective. It is not something followers of God should just learn to live with. Fear causes destruction. It causes people to take control of situations we were never intended to try to control. As mamas, we have absolutely no control over whether our children run into a metaphorical or a literal brick wall. We can delude ourselves into thinking otherwise. The by-product of our delusion will be fear.

In the Old Testament/Torah, God blesses a couple with a son. This couple loved their child as much as we love ours. Their son’s laughter brightened their lives. Their son’s love filled their hearts. Their son’s life gave theirs more meaning. Scripture states God said to this father, “Take your son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” (Genesis 22:2 NIV) I don’t know about you, but this particular piece of instruction doesn’t sit well with me as a mother. The first several years that I read these words, they sounded crazy to me, but they never sounded crazy to Abraham.

Abraham knew and loved God. Abraham had walked with God for a long time. They had a real relationship. Abraham knew that God stood in opposition to a culture that killed children, as in the worship of Baal. He knew God’s love and tenderness. He did exactly what God asked of him, as a result. There is no evidence of doubt or fear in the text. In fact, he told his servants that he and Isaac were going up the mountain to “worship and then we will come back to you.” (Genesis 22:5 NIV) I believe he truly meant and believed what he told them. And he told Isaac that the offering they would give to God would be provided by God when they got there. He trusted God, even when it seemed like he shouldn’t. He knew Isaac was going to be alright because he was following what God told him to do. He knew God well enough to trust Him. Do we?

Look, Abraham wasn’t Abram anymore. 13 years before this, Abram and his wife took control of another one of their children’s life without God’s help. But Abraham and Sarah were faithful this time to God’s instruction. Abraham was so close to God that he knew the one thing in his own life that he could easily place above God in his heart was his child. He had done it before. He wasn’t going to do it this time. Perhaps he knew God was showing him that our children cannot be our “God”— that our children cannot come before God in our hearts, if life is going to go well for us. When we place our children before God in our hearts, we have created disorder. When we make our children our “god,” our life becomes dictated by fear—fear of not ever having children, and fear of losing them once we do. Abraham not only followed the instruction correctly; he heard the instruction correctly. His specific instruction was to OFFER Isaac to the Lord. Abraham knew that God is perfect and what he asks of us is for our benefit. When Abraham got to the top of the mountain, he went through the motions of offering Isaac to the Lord, because he knew he needed to place his child before the Lord, not above the Lord. But Abraham never had to harm his child. God simply NEVER asked him to do that. What God did ask him to do was to offer or entrust his child to Him. Abraham knew that it is always best to act in accordance with truth: Isaac is the Lord’s. He always was. Everything in heaven and on Earth is. Including our own children.

Abraham’s faith-walk up that mountain wasn’t just done for his benefit; it was done for ours. This faith-walk was done to foreshadow Jesus’s death. This faith walk was an intimate and personal illustration of what God was going to do for Abraham and for us. God carried his only Begotten Son up the slope of Calvary and offered his life for ours. God allowed Jesus to die a physical death for the wages of our sins. God was teaching us all through Abraham and Isaac’s lives that the sacrifice is significant, but that it isn’t ours to make. It is God’s. From the outside looking in, without knowledge of the character of God and without discernment from the Holy Spirit, it may seem like God is a crazy-man asking Abraham to sacrifice his child. But God never asked Abraham to murder. Murder is a sin. It’s funny how humans tend to think letting go of control is going to kill us, when in fact, it gives us life.

God used Abraham’s life to foreshadow the greatest sacrifice of love ever made: the sweat running down Isaac’s brow that day foreshadowed the blood dripping down Christ’s centuries later. The weight of the wood on Isaac’s back was the weight of the cross on Christ’s. Isaac’s faith in his father on earth and Abraham’s love for his Father in Heaven illustrate Christ’s faith in God and love for us. The release of Isaac illustrates the freedom that comes through the substitutionary offering of Christ. But this is difficult to see without the Holy Spirit’s help.  

During this pandemic, I can’t help but wonder how many beautiful mothers out there are scared for their children. My heart aches for you, if you are one. Just a few months ago, I was there. So I want to share what helped me: fear and worry don’t change anything, but trusting God to protect, provide for, and take care of our children does.

We don’t have control over life and death, regardless of how much we may want or try. There is only One who does.

Jesus conquered death, disease, and disorder for us and for our children. He goes before us and behind us and beside us to bless us, not to set traps. We can trust Him with our lives and the lives of our children. We don’t have to live in fear.