The Care Taker

When I was a little girl I was afraid of the dark. After my parents tucked me in at night I would lay awake in my bed and the room would come alive. Shadows would dance across my walls, I heard creaks and groans come from the closet and things definitely went “bump” in the night under my bed.

To slay these demons and calm my fears I would yell for my parents to come check things out. Dutifully, albeit sleepily, either Mom or Dad would come and look in the closet and under the bed. Of course, by the time they got there the monsters had hidden safely back in their lairs, waiting for the all-clear to come back out.

Even worse than my fear of the night-time monsters was my fear of thunder. I hated thunder. Down here in Houston we get lots of thunder storms so fear of thunder can really cramp a girl’s style. I would hear a clap of thunder and run screaming into my parents room and jump into bed between them for safety. (Not really cool when your 14 but hey, death by heart attack ain’t so cool either.) My fears of the dark continued into college where I could not sleep unless both mine and my roommates closet doors were closed. (So sad but true.)

My brothers knew I was afraid of the dark and loved to play on this. One hilarious night (I’m being sarcastic here) when I was in high school we were on vacation in Colorado and they really played it up. The ceiling of the house we were staying in was made with those acoustic tiles you see in office buildings (I didn’t say it was a nice house). After I had gone to sleep they grabbed a tube of toothpaste and lifted a ceiling tile in their room, reached over the wall and lifted a ceiling tile in my room and squirted toothpaste down on me! They wanted to hit me in the face with the toothpaste and scare me to death. Too bad for them they missed. It landed on the pillow beside me, where I thought it was a rat – and scared me too death, which is really pathetic because I heard them doing all this! (I still have not gotten them back for this – but they had better sleep with one eye open.)

Over the years, you would think I would have outgrown my fears of night-time monsters but not so much. Lucky for me, I have added to them with more adult fears and anxieties. These too keep me awake at night at times. These fears are of the world, my life, my future, my problems, for my loved ones, you name it – fear and anxiety comes in all shapes and sizes.

Sometimes my fear and anxiety paralyzes me – emotionally, mentally, physically. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I can’t crawl into bed with my parents anymore – at my age that would be a tad creepy. So, I have to find a different protector to save me.

Luckily, I do have a Father that asks me to give all my fears, worries and anxieties to Him. Our Heavenly Father asks us to cast our cares on Him and He will sustain us and we will never be moved. (Ps. 55:22) This is wonderful news. As long as we believers trust in Him and cast our cares and worries on Him, God will take care of us and we will never be moved from His grace. I don’t know about you, but I can use all the grace I can get.

I have to admit that I am really good at casting my cares on God but I am not so good at leaving them cast. I find myself taking them back – worrying again, being anxious again, coming up with new things to worry about. The thing is, is that I can’t have it both ways. I can’t ask God to handle my business and then still hold onto it. He doesn’t work that way. Either I handle it or He does – but not both of us. Letting go of the steering wheel is just so scary.

But here’s the thing, the times I have relinquished control, everything worked out fine. The disasters I worried about did not come to pass. The boogie man did not eat me alive, so to speak. The times I have not given up my fears to God, I was miserable, tormented and probably made the situation worse and last much longer than necessary. So here's what I'm going to commit to memory in my head and heart:

“Whenever I am afraid,
I will trust in You.
In God (I will praise His Word),
In God I have put my trust;
I will not fear.
What can flesh do to me?”
(Ps. 56:3-4)

I am slowly learning that when I trust, really trust God as He asks me to a peace washes over me that is amazing. Just like the peace I had when I was little and sleeping between my parents during a thunder storm, when I allow my Heavenly Father to be my Care Taker I can rest in peace safe from life’s storms. What more does a parent want for their child? What more does a child want from a parent?

And I know my Mom and Dad appreciate me having someone else to check the closet in the middle of the night.

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