unprotected.

i am feeling so unprotected right now. i am afraid i am going to have one of those phobias where you don't leave the house and liam will have to live here with me all day and ian will have to quit his job because he won't be able to leave either and we will have to invent something fabulous to sell and live off of because the world i am in right now scares the crap out of me every time i turn around. we will barricade the doors and live like soldiers behind the walls of a fort and....wow, what a way to live right? that is NOT the abundant joyful life Christ sacrificed his own to give us to live in....so i have to choose.

i am going to be pretty honest and just say that i am a mess these days. constantly on edge, scared and uptight and unable to relax. i am afraid the cat will run away again and get killed in another fight. i am afraid ian will hurt himself at work. i am afraid of losing the only other child i have left and want to have this ninja-like grip and skill to protect him at all times. i am worried that our house will be broken into and us harmed in the process. i am worried that we won't be able to have another child. i am worried that we will and we will lose another one the same way. i am worried that i will not ever be able to stop worrying. it does not make me a lovely "at peace" person to be around and i don't like that. i know it makes ian and liam anxious to be around me when i am telling them to be careful all the damn time like a parrot..."be careful, be careful"...i cannot find any peace or rest and can't turn my mind off...the only time i am at peace is when i am asleep. i go to bed worried and wake up the same way. worry is a sin, i know this. it is a control issue and i am not trusting God, i know this. but this is my problem as of lately. and i am always afraid to be so transparent with my thoughts because what if so and so reads it or that person or the other, what will they think of me? i can be so worried about acceptance and approval that my need to voice my heart and the hard questions in my mind becomes silenced and pushed to the back shamefully. so yes, it is a trust issue with God right now. i am trying to meditate on His Goodness but it is hard when all around goes to crap and i wished He would have stepped in to do something about it. He is not a superhero, He is God, but why do i insist on thinking of Him that way? i have no, none, nada right to tell the Creator how to do His job, i am not even questioning His set-up but i have this problem with understanding how i am to glean peace and joy from someone i don't trust at the moment even though i am called to in ALL circumstances, no matter what.

when death invites itself into your home, that's not all that creeps in. fear, insecurity, uncertainty and doubt. all around you if you let it. if you can beat it, than great, more power to you...i have not figured that one out yet. i am afraid of losing a child. and we did. so now i know it can happen and DID happen to us, i know it is a God given possibility to happen again. i know death doesn't care what you look like or care about your race or economic status, it's that inclusive that all are welcomed. i am afraid of late night calls that might bring bad news of a family member. i grew up with this happening in our family at least 3 times before i was 7, 1x at a friend's house in the 6th grade and then 2x in high school when my brother and i each lost a friend to drunk driving. i know that life can change at any given moment. that is why i am so anxious and have been since i was a kid because that's all i seem to know, that tragedy happens at any time to anyone all the time. and you can't control it. your house can burn down, your dog can die, you can get called out over the loud speaker at a ranger's game bc your grandpa has just died, just like that and you can move across the country away from all you know- ALL in the same month at the age of 8.....because life changes constantly and no matter how many, "now i lay me down to sleep prayers" you utter, none of them can change it. you have to accept it. at 8 that was extremely hard, kinda foggy and hard to grasp. funny, 23 years later i am still stumped...

since syd died, i am in constant fear of something happening to liam, to ian and to those i love. i am afraid that i will become like job in the bible and more will be taken from me....so, i hoard my loved ones close to my heart and look ugly in that untrusting process again, more sin, ugly gross enslaving sin. i guess i also grew up though thinking prayer was powerful. it is, but in my mind i think i thought it was magical....like old testament miracles and happenings...and if you believed and loved the Lord and lived your life for Him and through Him, than your prayers would protect you from evil...like it was one of the perks you get when you join God's "club", 24/7 brinks protection from the evil one because God is on your side!..obviously as i grew older i realized that is not true..evil is all around and has been since the fall of man. God can choose to intervene and can and has more times than we know of but on many occasions doesn't for His greater purposes that we cannot see for now or maybe never see at all. plus, there is the whole independence thing we want so badly, to be dependent from Him and crave free will but then when we mess that up (because we will) or make bad choices we don't want to deal with the consequences he so tried so earnestly to protect us from in the first place...so you make the best of it, this life, and pray with faith and trust that God's goodness and promise is worth it, like the end justifying the means...and if you figure out the whole Grace part of His plan and how we don't deserve any of this anyway and are gifted it freely because of His love for us, than it makes it more bittersweet, because how do you complain or whine about a gift that is free...one that is given so beautifully, poetically and painfully on a hill on a cross???? how do you walk away from that image and whine about this life after that? good or bad, tragedy or not....if that grace perspective fits in your head, than you are that more confused like me...because i don't want to live in fear or not trust that Gift giver...i want to live freely in His love and grace and Hope.....i want to pray to Him and have a relationship with Him and trust His provision for me and my life....

so i pray for my daughter every night while she is within me, growing beautifully. her daddy prays over her at night and sings to her and her brother prays for his sister to be "ok" and healthy and we lay together as a family basking this precious child in protective prayer...thinking that our prayers can cover her like a blanket and keep her from harm....that in our asking and coming unto the Lord, he will honor our prayers and bless us and guard her....protect us, watch over His children and shelter us....

only, when she dies, all those prayers feel empty, like they have somehow ended up in God's trashcan or overflowed inbox that he never got to....we prayed believing, but still weren't able to protect her. the thought of trying again for a baby and praying again for that little one all over, together as a family like that again...well, i have to tell you-sometimes i ask myself, what is the point if God is going to do what he will anyway?...if life/nature is evil and all things can happen and he allows it, then why pray for protection if God can't give us total protection until we are Home with Him?

we pray for baby grayson to be healed and nothing. we pray for ian's situation with his music label and nothing happens. we pray for protection over our home and the house next door is robbed. we pray for peace in our house but more panic attacks come instead. we talk this week and pray for no one else to have to suffer like us, but we read about steven curtis chapmen's daughter who died this week and another story of a 2yr old who is accidentally run over by his mommy as he and his daddy and brothers lay out in the front to look at the stars together one night...do i pray for liam and trust that he will be protected by an Almighty God that allows whatever he wants to happen? seems like i can do a better job sometimes than Him, if i could...(i know, strike lightning) but i am being honest when i struggle with all these questions....if it is His will, than He will allow anything and that is His form of protection that we have to just TRUST...that is hard.

i feel so unprotected right now. i asked ian to pray over our home last night after the neighbor's robbery next door happened but i lay there thinking, "if God wills it or allows it, someone could come in and do the same or worse to us, what's the point"...i doubted ian's prayer would "count" or be heard as if it would change anything that is already set in motion by the Creator who has already ordained all of our days.....i fell asleep afraid and hopeless and didn't feel like praying helped or mattered.

i am well aware that fear does not come from the Lord. so i must daily if not hourly remind myself that Satan will not have power over my thoughts like this but it becomes increasingly harder as more tragedies unfold and life gets more out of control...i know where to look, His word...i know who to turn to and ask, Him and His people, and i also know that somehow all this garbled up crap will be turned into something beautiful and whole and "made sense of" once He returns and takes us Home...

but for now, i struggle. this morning, with coffee in hand i look out the window and am scared of the world i see out there. scared for my son, my husband, my friends and family, etc....i feel like the Armor i pray to cover me will not protect me in this worldly battle...it will arm me with strength to get through the battle but it won't keep me from warring or having to fight what comes my way....but He didn't promise us this for our world here, alyssa. i know that. He promised us that we wouldn't be alone in it. so maybe my prayers need to be changed...but how do i do that without sounding so cynical? "God, you will do what you will anyway, so just be with me in the center of the storm that will come and don't leave me alone...please. Stay right by my side."

a couple of people told us shortly after sydney died that God could have been sparing her from something far worse in the future....that maybe her death then was an act of mercy by God for the unknown future. nice to think about, comforting as it may sound, it now seems wrong and out of step with who God is if you think like that. and i am guilty of that thought process because it got me through many days of my suffering her life and death if i could rationalize that she was spared or saved mercifully from a terrible act that could have happened to her in the years to come. but if you look at that, if you really think about that statement, it means God would have had a plan B for her life...and i don't believe God does that for any of us. only Plan A, His plan...and there is no Plan B for any of us or that would bring into question His sovereignty of already ordaining all of our days for us wouldn't it? wouldn't it prove an "unchanging God that we learn of" as a God that can't make up his mind and decides last minute to change his mind and have a do-over? that doesn't make sense to me or ian and that is no longer a comfort to us because we don't believe in a Plan B God...i am afraid of what that means for Plan A because it means no control for us in this lifetime..(duh)..which is exactly how we are to live, submit to Him and His will for our lives and trust that His plans for us are for good and a purpose....His will, not our own.

i hate fear. i am afraid of fear. and fear will keep me paralyzed in this prison like state, both mentally and physically if i don't get it together...whatever that means...i just want to learn, re-learn or re-train my brain and heart to pray with faith and believe that my prayer matters to Him and it counts towards the trust relationship we have going together in this life and that my prayers may not change the course of any history but i guess it's purpose is to change me instead....but as long as i am holding onto to this fear-rope, i can't let go to do so....i can't let go of one, unless i know the other is there....and hence the beautiful mess that is trust....that is how it has to happen or it's not trust at all....it is a barter system and i know God is not about that at all....

death, all this death...has caused me to look at my God differently and has forced me to figure out how and what i really believe and walk with..not just talk about...i am just so confused, so tired and so full of fear that i can't seem to separate what is true and what is emotion...i am tired of being afraid. i don't even really know how to pray anymore, what to say, how to speak to the Lord with such an ugly untrusting heart...weird, how i totally get the Grace part of faith, grace that brings me Love, and great thanksgiving for my God and a heart that wants to share that with others , but the trusting part that brings you Hope and Joy and helps you feel protected is a stranger in my head and heart right now....i have a lot to work on and "pray" about....