Today I fear–

that nothing I do is really all that significant.

that I can’t manage a blog and a life and a writing career all at the same time.

that my back injury won’t let me enjoy my sister’s wedding next week where I am sure to cry and not be able to get through my speech.

that I’ll never have a book deal or an agent or a professional career as a writer so I should just apply at Belk’s and move on.

that I yell too much at my kids and my husband but we’ll never be able to avoid therapy to deal with it all.

What about you? What’s holding you down as we approach a fall weekend that should be glorious, but for me at least, shows not enough margin in the schedule?

This post is part of my 31 Days series: When Fear is Crippling. There aren’t 31 posts because I fear overloading your inbox with ramblings that you just delete. 

Oh, and when I’m really down, I listen to Tsh talk time management and fringe hours with Jessica Turner while I fold the laundry I fear will never end. Then I read this about feeling insignificant as a mom and I nod my yes and pour another glass of tea and face my fears.

The day I quit my job, I sat in the parking lot and cried.

My letter of resignation was on the console, my mind was set, but my heart hurt. And I was so very scared of making the wrong decision.

But you know that gut feeling when you’re making the right decision and everyone keeps telling you how crazy you must be and you do it anyway? Yeah, I had that.

So I quit my job as a middle school teacher and I gave away parts of my classroom and little pieces of myself and I came home to be a full-time mom who writes a little bit.

Six weeks after I turned in that letter, the bank where my husband was fast-tracked though corporate management was closed by the FDIC.

That’s a whole sad story for another time, but suffice it to say, my principal tracked me down and offered to let me reconsider. I didn’t. We didn’t.

He interviewed with another bank and took a position that was a 45-minute commute away. We skated through summer on the surety of God’s timing and my idealism of staying home, and then wham!

I got hit by the mack truck of exhaustion that can only mean one things. An unexpected, unplanned, unlikely pregnancy.

My baby boy.

I didn’t handle the detour well. By fall, the honeymoon period was over, the job was costing more than we were making, and I was positive there was no way I could be a good mom to FOUR kids. Four. That’s twice their father and me.

Miserable and pathetic and terrified that I had made the biggest mistake of my life, we plodded ahead through forms for aid (our health insurance had been dropped with the job change and I was rationing milk for cereal, tough, tough times). Christmas loomed on the horizon.

One early December afternoon, when the kids were begging to decorate, I trudged  to the outdoor storage shed and wrenched open the door. As I shoved aside boxes and my belly in an attempt to pull out wreaths, the movement began.

Scurrying from under boxes and across the dusty floor came the mice.

Go ahead and retch. I did.

Our family cat had disappeared over the summer and the mice had moved in and set up residence among our boxes of old clothes, decorations, and general junk. They seemed to be everywhere, and when my husband took on the task of cleaning out the building, he found what could only be classified as an infestation.

I. Lost. It.

In my mind we had done everything right. We had prayed. We had saved. We had trusted.

In my mind, God owed us an easier time because we had placed our faith in Him. That’s not how life works, though. The easier time comes because of the trust through the hard times.

Mice had eaten holes through all our humdrum life stored in a shed.

Fear had eaten holes through all my gauzy fabric of faith.

And set up camp deep in my soul.

Somedays I think I’ve repaired that faith lining. Now it’s a patchwork quilt of protection, rather than a film of security.

But somedays I find a hole, and I poke myself through, and rage like I did that day in the backyard when we purified the tangible items of our little life.

On those days, I need to purify my soul–to cry out and weep and beg and listen to the still small voice that reminds me–

Do not fear.

And I repeat it like a refrain as I weave the fabric of faith across the holes in my soul.

Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will help you; I will hold on to you with My righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:10

So when I see the pictures all over the internet of children losing their lives to the world’s deadliest border crossing and Germans holding signs welcoming the Syrian refugees (why is they don’t fear the terrorism the U.S. does?), I wonder if how I’m spending my time matters.

Writing stories. That’s what I do a lot of these days. Penning (really, typing) words from head to page. Lots of editing for myself and others. Studying structure and theme and deep point of view and just hoping and praying that I’m not wasting my time or my talent.

Well, I do all that and I shuttle four kids around and do the school thing and the physical therapy thing and the how-can-we-need-more-groceries thing. You know, the mom thing. Which matters for sure because the ones I’m raising up here, hopefully they’ll help make this world a better place where images of drowned two year olds don’t exist.

We can only imagine. And pray. And hope.

The other day one of my fellow editors from Splickety Publishing Group sent me a story to look over. She wrote it for a contest and needed some quick feedback.

A short piece about a little Serbian girl, her father, and her grandmother and their heart wrenching choice to leave the only home they’ve ever known.

You see, there’s news stories. Then there’s human stories. That’s what I do. What my friend does. What so many aspiring fiction writers do–we make the news, the it-could-never-happen-here, the big, bad world–we make that human.

We give it characters with names and backstory and empathetic qualities. We strive to show the beautiful and the ugly, to give you an enemy to slay and a hero to trust. We give a you a place of escape, and then, when you re-emerge from a story’s world, we hope you see yours with fresh, new eyes.

With eyes that cannot turn from the ways you can help, can change, can make a difference.

That’s why I’m writing. Because God’s gift to me is words–and I’m passing those along to you. Then when I’m done pouring my heart onto a screen or scratched across the surface of a journal, I’m rolling up my sleeves and ready to do even more.

To pack a box full of sweatpants I cleaned out of my kids over abundance of stores clothes.

To pray daily for those who face the hard decisions–the migrants and the politicians and the police caught in the middle.

To challenge you to understand, from here in your own place of comfort and turmoil, that this refugee crisis is rocking our world and we can choose to welcome or we can choose to ignore.

But either way, this is not just a story. In this world, there will never be an end of hatred and greed and persecution. But there can be a new chapter.

There can be a new beginning.

For more resources on how to support the world’s worst refugee crisis since World War II, I recommend:

We Welcome Refugees Official Site
Ann Voskamp’s Plea to the Church
What You Need to Know about the Syrian Crisis
How an American Millionaire is Saving Them from Drowning—this was the first time I ever heard about the Mediterranean Sea as a border crossing. There was an article about this man in Joshua’s Bloomberg Business Weekly. It’s haunted me for months.
Because We Can’t Do Nothing, Practical Ways to Help the Refugee Crisis (and get a great t-shirt, too)

I’ve reached that point where my major project is finished and exhaustion has set in. I think that’s the real reason publishers make you wait on a response–that piece of work needs time to rest and I need time to recover.

Not to mention, I think I’ve pretty much think I’ve ruined my eyesight in the last two weeks. Between editing and writing, I’ve also been addressing invitations to my sister’s wedding. As if having five sisters wasn’t tiring enough, now we’re less than 60 days out from the big “I Do.”

Then there’s been the flurry of back to school and how that made me just fall apart.

So, I’m tired. And when I’m tired I want to hide. That’s why there’s a flattened John Grisham paperback on my nightstand and a Netflix binge of Friday Night Lights happening on my laptop. Because when the fear that I’ve made all the wrong decisions becomes overwhelming I like to remind myself, at least I’m not defending a client on death row or coaching high school football.

Seriously, y’all.

Let’s just take a moment to put life into perspective.

I wrote a book. Maybe it will get published and if it does, I need everyone reading this blog to buy at least three copies so I can afford to get some reading glasses.

Amelia has a diagnosis. Clinically Isolated Syndrome. For me, having a name for our nightmare helps me move past it and into our new normal. Except for those times I am struck down with fear that she will get sick and relapse and our life will collapse all around us, all over again.

Fear is crippling.

So I hide a little and rejuvenate and wonder why in the world I didn’t listen to April three years ago when she told me to watch Friday Night Lights.

Oh, yeah, because it’s a little bit like watching my high school days on television. We won a state football championship once. And my little hometown has never, and will never, forget it.

But you know what’s true? That show–and my hometown–really are about more than football. They’re about clear eyes–seeing the hardship in front of you and rising to the challenge. They’re about full hearts–believing good will triumph no matter what.

That’s what we all have to believe isn’t it? If we’re going to survive through this world of fear and fatigue, we have to believe that bad times can be upended by good–and hard times only last for a season.

Do yourself a favor if you’re worn out or worried. Let yourself hide for a little bit. I’ve got a big sectional sofa, two more seasons to watch, and nothing wrong with my listening skills at least.

P. S. Matt Saracen is my favorite. Hands down. But Tim Riggins is growing on me and I sure didn’t see that coming. Oh, and when I grow up I want to be a mom like Tami Taylor. And I want Joshua to talk to our girls about sex the way Eric talks to Julie when they’re playing ping pong in season 1. That’s it. I’m done. Go watch it. And you’re welcome.