Fearful mother, you can trust Mary’s boy (even when)
It’s my son across the sea. My adventuring, off-again, far-away son, he with the Jesus hair.
“Kelly Anne died.” Oh, God. My heart skips a beat. And like that, I’m back on the Race.
Three years ago right now, my secondborn and 40-some of his peers who made up Y Squad were on the island of Lesbos in Greece, processing refugees in a camp. It was the second stop on their 11-month, 11-country circuit, a life-changing experience called The World Race. For months, we followed their trip, marking the route with orange cords on a huge map of the world in its spot on our dining room wall.
His fellow racers found a place in his heart, and in ours. And suddenly, one of them…gone.
My fingers are flying on the keypad. “What happened??”
“A drunk driver.”
Two days this side of Thanksgiving, a drive home in the dark, and a bright, shining light is snuffed out. Screech of metal.
It was something my husband said just last night that caught my ear with a message that’s begun to take shape. “Odd,” he said. “She went all the way around the world and was safe. Came home, a drunk driver…” And here, his voice trailed off.
All around the world, safe. Home, drunk driver, and gone.
What I’m thinkin’ on is this–that I can spend my days worrying. Fretting. Losing minutes and hours, weeks and full months, to fear. I was going to say that such fear’s fruitless, but actually, it does bear its fruit. And it’s awful.
What the World Race taught me was that as a mother, my stretch marks never stop. They don’t. For everywhere my babies go? My heart, it stretches there, too; such are the cords of love.
The Race also taught me that anywhere in the world that they go, God will be there as well. And here, too, on a dark November night.
I know now that the cords of love that connect us can become bands that constrict, ties that bind. It steals our peace, swallows our joy, and drives our loved ones away.
Those stretch marks, those love-ties? They remind me, always and ever, of where I can safely put my trust. Of Who is in charge of my children…
Mary’s boy. Joseph’s son. Our dear friend, Lord Christ, can be trusted. As Papa Himself has often told me, “My Son has yours.”
In a land far away, even then. In a “safe” life stateside, even here. Whether they’ve flown from the nest or live right close nearby, then, too. Jesus has them, and He knows the number of their days.
Just like He’s got mine, He has yours, and yours, and yours, too. With Advent season approaching, this simple, but hope-filled message. “They are His. No matter what.”
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Team Kairos: Kyle, Greg, Jamison, Kelly Anne, Shirletha, and Catherine
With loving thoughts and prayers for all who will miss Kelly Anne,
Mrs. Schrock, a.k.a. Jamison’s mom