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We don’t have cable or satellite or digital television in our house.  If it’s not on Netflix or a DVD, my kids probably haven’t seen it.  So, keeping them in the dark when tragedy is unfolding all around us is actually fairly easy.

We just don’t talk about the news in front of them.

Of course it’s because I don’t want to scare them, and I don’t want to expose them to life’s messiness before they’re old enough to even comprehend that life can be messy and hard and horrific and tragic.

Of course I want to hide them from all the evil this world has to offer.  I want to retreat someplace far away where I can keep them safe and secluded and sheltered and simple.  I don’t want them to know that a man with a gun murdered twenty children in classrooms that look like theirs.  I don’t want them to know that yesterday a little boy Madelynne’s age died because some crazy lunatic decided to explode a bomb at the finish line of a beloved marathon.  I don’t want them to know that every time I hear these stories and watch these pictures I practice escape routes in my mind for the next time we’re in a mall, or on a street, or visiting a museum.  I don’t want them to believe there are no safe places anymore.

But I do want them to believe in Jesus.  I want them to believe in amazing grace and rescuing love and perfect mercy.  I want them to believe that He is a refuge, a strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble.

I need to believe.  Because if I do, then I can tell them there is evil in this world and it is blacker and darker than any story we read or movie we watch, and it is not a fantasy.  It is real, but it can be overcome.

But those of us who believe, who call ourselves Christians, who are steadfast in our faith of a God who is loving and just, we have to be present.  We cannot hide from all that surrounds us, all that freezes our hearts in our chests and slips tears of grief and fear down our cheeks.  We can’t hole up in our churches and wait for Sunday and pray with the people who come to us.  We have to go to them.

We have to walk the streets of Boston and hit our knees beside the plastic chairs in the hospital waiting rooms.  We have to help rebuild a school and hang our prayers on snowflakes in its halls.  We have to buy our groceries and take our kids to the park.  We have to eat at mall food courts and push strollers at street fairs.  

We have to go to the movies and not be afraid of the dark.

We have to live and be and love and weep and pray.  We have to tell our children there is evil, yes, but there is also light.  For every bad guy, there’s a hero who overcomes.  

It’s my job to raise those heroes.

Which means I can’t hide them from Sandy Hook or Boston or Aurora.  Which means, somehow, I have to find a way to talk about the world we live in without letting fear be my guide.

I was on top of my game yesterday.  Managed jazzy childcare, grocery store with both little ones (and stayed in budget), homemade bread in the oven and dinner in the crockpot, middle school play practice with all four, homework done, bath for peed-on-herself Millie, Community Bible Study with a completed lesson, rough draft of blog for today, endured screaming baby for an hour without having a breakdown myself.  Like I said,  got this.

Enter Tuesday.

Usually Tuesday doesn’t mess with me so much.  It’s quieter than Monday and a lot less hectic because I’m down three kids,  instead of the usual two, thanks to church preschool.  Gus naps a lot and I write a lot or plan a lot or pinterest things I’ll never do.  But this week I had resolved not to waste my time, but rather to make the most of it, to treat this gift of a couple uninterrupted hours during morning nap as my scheduled work time.  I don’t want to just play with these words anymore, I want to use them for good.  So, I had a plan.

Someday I’m going to stop expecting my plans to work out like I expect.

Bet you can guess the worse glitch in my plan—
the wonder of technology.  Everything I was going to work on centered on my access to the internet.  It’s where all my posts are archived, where I monitor submission requirements, where I find ideas for promoting what I’m trying to do.  And it’s how I keep up with really important information, you know, like what my sister had for dinner and when my friends are watching Downton Abbey.

Except the all-consuming internet was down.  Again.  Our line through the phone company is known for being unreliable and not working if it’s sunny.  Or cloudy.  Or rainy.  Or windy.  Basically, it’s a never-ending problem.  We’ve been signed up for the new fiber optic network since Thanksgiving, but hadn’t been turned on, so when I realized the connection was out again, I was readied to call both companies and complain.  Then, out of the blue, electrician man turns up to connect the service!  I figured God was smiling on me.  (Electrician man also admitted they had lost our request somehow.  Knew we should have been calling more.)

However, if you know me, you know I’m not tech savvy in the least.  My solution is always just to turn something off and then back on, and if that doesn’t work, I leave it up to my husband.  The man’s a saint about this, really.  Because when I couldn’t use either connection this morning after following tech support directions and my own bumbling instincts, he got the weepy call.

Of course I cried.  I cried because I was frustrated, I felt stupid, I felt inadequate, and I had that enemy who sows seed of doubt whispering in my ear: See?  It doesn’t matter what you do.  What you think is important is nothing compared to those who have real jobs, who are making a paycheck, who are supporting their family.

Since I’ve become a stay-at-home mom that’s been the hardest voice to ignore.  The taunt that what I do doesn’t matter.  That blogging about the grace in my trials, that planning seven days of meals, that clipping coupons and shopping sales, that baking instead of buying, and consigning instead of spending, all these things I do right now to fill my days and feed my family spiritually, physically, and emotionally matter to no one but me.

But they do matter.  They do make a difference.  They do build my family in a way that I wasn’t doing before. What I do is important to me, and, I believe it is, therefore, important to my God.  He heard my rant this morning and He felt my tears, and He assured my soul that this season He has called me to is for His glory, even in my mess.