"You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong and sound as long as you are merely using it to cord a box. But suppose you had to hang by that rope over a precipice. Wouldn't you then first discover how much you really trusted it? "
C.S. Lewis

But there was one time when we were poor enough to be on welfare, and he worked for minimum wage. I was home with four kids and no car, and he uncharacteristically called me. He never called me from work, because cell phones were not invented yet and his boss did not smile on personal matters infringing on company time. But this one morning, he did need to say something important, yet brief. An hour later a random stranger phoned to threaten me.

 

"I have your husband hostage. I want money, if you ever expect to see him again."

 

Now normally my brain instantly shuts off in emergencies, faster than a nuclear reactor, and I go to the worst case scenario. I am unable to think logically, or do much besides scream. But this time, I knew that John had just called me, and clearly was not kidnapped. I hung up. 

 

I have had that fear fall with most of my children. Micah was eight years old and flying alone, when the attendant at his connecting flight put him on the wrong plane. Hosanna was temporarily misplaced at the Rose Parade in Pasadena when she was four. At five months Benjamin was diagnosed with severe failure to thrive, and had twelve doctors studying his case. Then there was the time that John trudged home, breathless, and said "The car died," and I thought he said "Chara died." More screaming. Lukas totaled a car... in Ireland.

 

Twenty years ago Micah was playing in a van with five other rug rats when one of them pulled off the emergency brake and they barreled down a steep hill. And there was the twenty second phone call from somewhere in Germany.

 

"I do not have enough cash for bus fare to get to the airport to fly home and need you to deposit money in my account immediately." Click.

 

I am grateful that most of the time I can operate under the illusion that nothing bad will ever happen to the people I love. It is good practice for a hundred years from now, when that illusion will become Real. 

 

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