Giants in the Land

Giants in the Land

You have told me you were raised in fear.

Perhaps you were. Every mother reserves the right to change the way she was raised, turning it inside-out with her own children. After all, who wants to make the same mistakes her parents made?

I was raised without tragedy. Somehow we four children escaped the horrific, the terrible, and the unthinkable. We were all-American. We loved Scouts, church, and apple pie. Even our last name was Jones. Dad drove a bright red fire truck and Mom ruled the PTA. We had values, causes, and expectations. We were not allowed to waste, talk back, or—under penalty of law—disobey.

And that wasn’t bad. Perhaps what was bad was the lack of “We love you”, the absence of “We’re so proud of you” and probably what my three brothers and I all craved the most: “We are so glad you were given to us.” Still, we must have side-stepped the major pitfalls of life, or your uncles and I simply didn’t hear about them. That is both good and bad.

The result of not talking about the darkness in life—the depression, the anger, the inevitable questions—was that somehow I believed I had all the answers, that I was fully equipped at 21 when I no longer, thankfully, needed my parents. I knew they were always there, knew they cared, and knew I had been raised by “good stock”. But—oh, my!—what a rude awakening I had when I went to college, worked, and then married.

I discovered the world-at-large did not think the way I thought, did not feel the way I felt, did not act the way I acted. “They” marched and ranted and raved. They cussed and broke and hurt. And they often did it simply because they could. Because no one stopped them.

Marriage held all my little-girl hopes and dreams to change the world with the One-I-Loved. But then the One-I-Loved became Someone-I-Don’t-Think-I-Like, and I was forced to re-evaluate my own definitions of love, vows, and respect. The lessons I learned during that season provided the soil of gratitude now in this bond with One-I-Love-More-Than-Ever.

Motherhood brought incredible joy bundled up in sleepless nights and exhausting days. Realizing that life itself had been entrusted to me made me shaky with fear. Many times, to this day, I tell the Almighty I am not equipped for the job. Many a dark evening I wondered if I would make it ‘til dawn’s early light, and then the morning would bring the welcome relief of changing diapers, schooling, and cleaning up the spills. I found myself on the edge of life, often wondering how people in the grocery stores coped with the terrifying undercurrents of arguments, bills, illnesses, and broken relationships. All of life seemed a trick, a deception of what I had been brought up to believe. Where was the Rose Garden, after all? I would most certainly stop to smell the fragrant flowers if I could only find them under the mounds of laundry and depression.

But most of all, it was the hurt that utterly upended me. The facing-of-the-fact that we fill our lungs with the acrid air of a sin-sick world. The wondering if a broken heart could ever hold love again. The looking through an imaginary window to see my babies bubbling with laughter while, at the same time, seeing the reflection of their weeping mother. Would we survive?

And so fear was born. I did not welcome it. I fought it with everything I had. I read and researched so that knowledge might dispel myth from reality. Midnight worry kept me awake battling the whispering attacks. I arose in the mornings to square my shoulders and take on the world again.

But I was afraid. Terribly afraid. My boot camp of young adulthood had nearly killed me, and I didn’t relish the thought of another near-death experience.

I realized I would have to train you differently than my mother and father had trained me. Your world was different, requiring different weapons, different strategies. And I didn’t know anything about them. How was I—a wife, mother, and homemaker—to make sense of the whirling axis of change, of brutal change, evil change? Something I had never faced?

So I tried. In your younger years, I simply closed the front door. Truly that was the best way, whether you agree now or not. That time was absolutely essential for both of us while you grew from babyhood to childhood and I struggled to define wise motherhood in attainable terms. Neither of us knew what we were doing. And again that wasn’t bad—or wrong. We learned together—I with prayers and books and quiet thinking in the dark watches of the night; you with playing and sleeping and loving. I drank in your love deeply, like I would drink from a clear brook in the mountains after a long hike. Gratefully, refreshingly. I did not sip the childhood hugs, the complete trust, the intimate bond we shared. Soberly I remembered—always—that you were entrusted to me. I never used you to fill my own heart. I knew who I was and who you were—and I loved you with all I possessed.

I had hoped that Love would lead me to know what to do when. And surely that was true. Those young years brimmed over with the pursuit of wisdom and faith, knowledge and purpose. Our days reflected the sun’s nourishing, life-giving growth sprinkled with the rain of bumps and bruises. Your seed-shells gently opened, and I watched as you began to grow tender roots that grasped at the soil of Life itself.

Yet I was afraid still. Would you really stand against the storms of life? Were you truly equipped to hold Truth no matter what? Indeed, as you matured, I matured. And then one day, when you were saying goodbye to the last wisps of childhood, I saw the front door of the world open—first a crack, then a foot, and then full-wide.

And what a world I saw! I did not see the glorious, wondrous world of sunshine and laughter I had left. Where I had remembered adventure, excitement, and wonder, I now saw shadows and clouds. I felt the darkness of palpable evil. My eyes beheld twisted, torn, mutilated humanity…and I wept. I knew the world was hard, but this? How could I have ever prepared you for this?

And then my knees buckled under me. You looked at me with pleading eyes. You wanted to go into the world. That world. All my hard work, all my hopes and dreams for you—dashed against the rocks of the daily headlines. You walked—and a few of you ran—out from under my authority into a world of enemy territory. I was terrified. Your Fearless Leader herself could not face the world. All she could see were giants: giant problems, giant heartache, giant brokenness. She knew the enemy, knew her own size, knew her own worth. Most certainly, she knew her own inability. She knew she was no match for the giants of the land.

So down I went. Despair was not unfamiliar territory, and its grasp on me began to tighten. Weariness underlined with grief eroded my soul. Deliberate choices of my children-now-grown collided with the complete surprise that my young ones would clamor to join the very world I had worked so desperately to protect them from. Media echoed the occult chants of darkness again and again in my head, the trends of the day that once declared fun and frivolity now proclaimed permanent disfigurement of heart, soul, and body. I began to recognize the wolves among the sheep and I sounded the alarm over and over to your retreating backs. Al l the while the smoke of the enemy made my eyes water so that I could not see you for the crying.

What was I to do? You were no longer children, and the counsel I received repeated the refrain, “The world really is far worse than it used to be.” Nowhere did I hear that the evils in the world were blown out of proportion. Nobody supported the notion that I was simply pessimistic, that I was looking only on the negative side of life. From every generation, from every friend, from every counsel or I heard, “It has never been this bad before.” Sure, I recalled that “there is nothing new under the sun”, but I was now certain that I faced the brutality of an unseen enemy who truly prowled around waiting to devour my young. I knew it was real for me, but to acknowledge that our children were to be his next victims drove me to wail from my gut, to cry out from my soul, and, finally, to bury myself in the only hope I knew: the pages of the Word.

And therein I found peace.

The Word.

I found—again—that He will abide in me as I abide in Him. I have taken to holding the blessed book in my arms sometimes when I sleep, knowing that the answers to my questions—and my children’s questions—are somewhere in those printed sheaves. I may not know exactly where to find the exact words, but because the Word is He Himself, and He has promised, I find peace at night when the threatening voices shout their loudest.

And so, through the Lord’s voice, I found the story of Joshua and Caleb as they were about to enter the Promised Land. Someone from each family had been chosen to spy out the land; every family was given the opportunity to come to his own conclusion. And when they returned, they gave the report: the enemy was too big. “You have brought us here so that our children will be their prey.” No truer words could have been spoken. My personal whining accusation read: “You gave us children only to have them eaten by the world!” Only Joshua and Caleb sounded the words: “We are well-able to overcome...”

Now, children, here is the revelation, so listen carefully: the giants really are bigger than we are! When I realized I indeed had a legitimate basis for my fears, I was aghast. It was true! The giants you face are huge! They are far bigger than me. And they are far bigger than you. I cannot fathom the evil, the temptations, the dark and twisted ideas you encounter. As your mother, I especially cannot bear to watch as you sometimes choose to dive headlong into shark-infested waters. Your father and I know pain, and we do not relish your meeting it face-to-face in the private moments of your lives.

So the picture is this: I am the size of a teacup. The problems you face are the size of a house—much, much larger than me. Unfathomably larger than me. Yet God is the size of the heavens and the earth. He is greater than any problem you have, any difficulty you face. This, dear sons and daughters, is revealed Truth.

So there you have it: my new stance regarding the enemy. I have been told it is never too late to change, so I am hereby putting you on alert: Momma no longer rules in fear.

I most humbly apologize for bringing you up to be afraid—afraid of the world, in particular. Will you forgive me?

Perhaps as you face your own giants, you will be alarmed. Blame me. Perhaps you will be frightened. Blame me. But from now on, know that you will find me interceding for you out of the strength of His promises, not out of the weakness of my panic. I aim to practice walking on water, my eyes fixed on Jesus alone. If I look at the storms that assail you, I myself will go under, for I know how hard it is to swim in a hurricane. I know all too well the desperate gulping for air when my ribs are being crushed so hard I cannot breathe. Yet I know this: He is “…mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.”

My beloved children, here am I. I love you desperately, fiercely. You are my life, my love, and my joy. As Dad and I watch you, the fruit of our union, grow and marry and begin another generation, we hope that above all, we have passed to you the only way we know to safely navigate life: stay true to Him. He is bigger than the giants in the land, and we are well-able to overcome.

I love you.

Momma