Continuing with the 30 Things My Kids Should Know About Me series, prompt #2 is to describe 3 legitimate fears and how they came about.

I guess emetophobia probably doesn’t count as a “legitimate fear,” being that it’s a phobia.  It would be my most obvious, though.  Everything else pales in comparison. (Not in terms of significance. But in terms of degree.)  I’m not sure I have three legitimate fears, unless I get really specific.  We’ll see…

1. That My Children Will Be Lost

I don’t mean wandering-in-the-woods or can’t-find-me-in-the-supermarket lost.  I mean without-God lost.  Is there really a “where it came from” for this?  ‘Cause I love my kids.  And ’cause it doesn’t seem that what we see in real life always matches up to what it looks like God promised us.  So I don’t trust that I’ll always like God’s plan.

That’s still just a lack of faith, I guess, because I really should trust God’s plan no matter how ugly it seems to me.  But I don’t.  That possibility still scares me.

2. That I Will Lose a Child

Now, we’ve lost two in the womb, early in pregnancy.  And I don’t mean to discount that at all, because they were babies, too, and we look forward to seeing them in heaven someday.  But it’s just not the same as losing a child you’ve seen and held and known.  And just like in #1, I don’t necessarily trust that God’s plan for us will be pleasant.  I know too many godly families whose children have died to have confidence that it won’t happen to us.

But that’s a pretty scary thought, too.  Not as scary as losing them eternally.  But pretty scary, nevertheless.

3. That Our Nation Will Go the Way of 1940’s Germany, 1860’s US, etc.

Because it’s looking like that’s not far off.  If you look at the historical pattern, we’re following the same cycle again.  And not enough people seem to recognize it or care, to feel like there’s any real chance of doing anything to head it off.  And, well…those were pretty ugly times.