This Is What’s Saving Me from Fear Right Now

When Tim and I began looking into adoption in 2009, I knew one thing for sure. I was scared to adopt internationally, because I didn’t want to fly to the other side of the world and risk dying in a fiery crash. 

At that time in my life, fear was my microscope. I didn’t know how to make a decision without pressing my eye against the lens and examining the jagged edges of risk. It was a paralyzing posture, and maybe one of the reasons why, when we asked Him about adoption, God pointed his divine finger toward Rwanda, a mere 7,000 miles away.

Fear Upon Fear

In 2011, two years after applying to adopt, it was time to go get our girl. The first flight of our journey would be 13 hours, taking us from Washington, D.C. to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 

In the days leading up to departure, I was an emotional wreck. My ever-present fear of flying was compounded by other anxieties. Our adoption wasn’t guaranteed. We knew little of what would happen once we reached Rwanda, other than the likelihood that we would face an uphill battle to bring our daughter home. 

I worried that our waiting and prayers would end in empty arms. 

I worried that one of us would get deathly sick and be unable to receive medical attention. 

I worried that I would have a panic attack and not be able to get it under control. 

And then there was the prospect of leaving our other children at home. Our flights were scheduled to bring us back from Africa after three weeks away, but that timeline was just a guess. We might be gone even longer, and we didn’t know how easy it would be to communicate while we were there. 

What if one of our kids got sick or hurt and we couldn’t get home?

What if they went to the park or a store with their grandmother and wandered off?

What if our plane crashed and we left them orphaned?

By the time the morning of our departure dawned, my composure was threadbare. I held it together through my shower, a quick breakfast, and packing the car. But when my 4-year-old son climbed into my lap for a final snuggle, I buried my face in his blond curls and sobbed like a red-hot mess.

I don’t remember much about the three-hour drive to Dulles, meeting our travel group, or trekking through the airport. But I do remember that somewhere between boarding the plan and feeling it lift from the tarmac, my fearful soul miraculously found solid ground.

Fear Meets Its Match

As I awaited takeoff, a memorized fragment of Psalm 139 somehow made itself heard above the frantic hum of fear.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

Psalm 139: 9-10

I was about to rise on the wings of dawn, all right. Whether I settled on the far side of the sea intact or in a ball of flame, only time would tell.

Brushing that thought aside, I grabbed onto the words of the psalm and tried to remember where it went from there. At first the verses came back to me in pieces, but when I got to verse 16, it was crystal clear.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:16

I took a deep breath and forced myself to meditate on the words.

God alone has numbered my days. They’re written in His hand. The ink is dry. 

He is good, I am his, and He is in control.

Our plane taxied onto the runway and began to accelerate. As the engines crescendoed, hurtling us toward the unknown with force beyond my control, I lay my head back, cradled by the One who controls all.

Fear Won’t Win This Day, Either

It didn’t occur to me until after I wrote that, but May 1st will mark nine years since that plane left the ground. Our daughter has been home with us almost a decade. Since then, I’ve traveled back to Rwanda twice, for other reasons.

Haven’t died in a fiery crash even once.

But our upcoming anniversary isn’t why I’m sharing this story with you now. I’m sharing it because in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when I’ve lain awake in the haunted hours of night fearing for my life and those I love, Psalm 139 has once again come to my rescue.

God alone has numbered my days. They’re written in His hand. The ink is dry. 

He is good, I am his, and He is in control.

I don’t find comfort in God’s sovereignty because I believe it’s a guarantee of physical safety. I know it is not. I could still die in a fiery crash. I could contract COVID-19 and be one of its rare “young” victims. The chances of either may be low, but they’re also very real.

I could also leave this earth a thousand other ways. I’m not going to write down the morbid list that leaps to mind, because I’ve spent too much time in therapy to put myself through that. And also, it would be an enormous downer. 

But hear me on this: Our hope isn’t in safety, it is in the sovereignty of the God who is love and mercy and every blessed, beautiful thing.

He has searched us and known us. 

He is familiar with all our ways and words. 

He hems us in, behind and before, and lays His hand upon us.

I forget this more often than I remember. I go back to worshipping knowledge and safety, and before long I’m all twisted up in what-ifs. I’m once again squinting at life through that dismal lens of fear, and the harder I look, the dimmer the light grows.

But here’s the truth: The future is no less certain today than it was before COVID-19, or whatever monster has infiltrated your life to sow fear and trepidation.

It might feel like you’re hurtling toward the unknown, out of control and surrounded by danger, but guess what? 

God is with you, always and everywhere.

If you go up the the heavens, He is there. If you make your bed in the depths, He is there.

If you rise on the wings of the dawn, if you settle on the far side of the sea, even there His hand will guide you. His right hand will hold you fast.  

In other words:

God is good, you are His, and He is in control.