When We Fear the Worst
My husband and I raced to the emergency room with our then two-year-old, my face covered in tears and my entire body shaking. Our son had just taken a horrible fall. He was responsive and seemed okay, but I was not. I thought there had to only be bad news to come.
The incident happened at the height of the pandemic, so only one parent was allowed to accompany him into the hospital room. While I wanted to be with our boy, I knew my own hysterics probably wouldn’t help anyone—especially him. I opted to wait in the car, my always-calm husband assuring me he’d text with updates as often as possible.
I sat in the parking lot, my body still trembling, my head spinning, my mind fearing the worst. I’m often a worst-case-scenario thinker, and sometimes, that mindset has its perks. Something spilled? I’m ready with wipes. Travel plans delayed? I’ve already thought through Plans B, C, and D. But this time, there was no coffee spill or plane delay. This was my son, hurt, in the hospital, with me unable to even be with him.
What if he has brain damage? What if he’s fine from the fall, but this is one of those stories where they find some other horrible ailment while they’re running tests? What if he has multiple bones fractured? What if . . .
My fears ran wild, and my worst-case-scenario thinking wasn’t doing me any favors. Instead, it added fuel to the fire of my worry.
By the grace of God, my son sported only a few scrapes and bruises, and in his little voice, he assured us later that next time he’d be sure to fall on something soft—like a mattress or a trampoline. (Next time? Please don’t let there be a next time!) In the following days and weeks, I still fought anxiety and worry, scared something would arise that the doctors didn’t catch. But God protected him, miraculously. I still shudder when I think about how much worse it could have been.
But stories don’t always end like that, right? Some end with death, sickness, and tragedy. For every story of healing and protection, there are a thousand more that can seem to us like they’re stories of God looking away or walking off the job. Many of us believe God can heal and protect—but we don’t know if he will. And in our finite minds, that kind of unpredictability can make us hesitant to trust him.
How Will God Answer?
Years ago, my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and six months after her diagnosis, my dad was also diagnosed with cancer. It was the same season we had other family members walking through health issues with their children; the same season, through extraordinary circumstances, my husband’s income went to zero (literally) overnight.
At that time, I didn’t simply fear what could happen. I feared what God was going to do. I started to fear coming to him with the worries in my life, because it seemed too risky—he seemed too risky. The prayers about my mom’s sickness had seemed to me to be answered with a cancer diagnosis for my dad. The prayers for provision during hard times seemed to be answered with financial struggles. If God answered my prayers like this, then he wasn’t the one I wanted to keep approaching with my pain. Even Jesus prayed for a way out in Gethsemane, and yet he suffered a gruesome death. If that was the case, how would God answer me?
I didn’t really want to know.
So often, we want to hold our broken heart close to our chest, because we think that if we give it to God, he might toss those broken bits around and stomp all over them. Maybe we know in our head he’s good and faithful and loving. But in our view, the unknowns make him seem unreliable. We end up afraid to come to God, because we don’t fully trust him. We don’t want to say with Jesus, “Your will be done,” because we’re scared of what his will may actually be. And so, like Paul Miller wrote, we start to prefer “the safety of isolation to engaging the living God.”[1]
But Scripture tells the story of a God who is trustworthy, a God who cannot be otherwise. When the Israelites stood scared in front of the Red Sea, God came through. When Job sat scraping his sores with the shards of a pot, God didn’t walk away. When God’s people grew discouraged and despairing, longing for the Messiah to come, he showed up with flesh and blood. He doesn’t always work the way we expect, but he is wholly and fully trustworthy. And it’s that trustworthiness that allows us to stare hard situations in the face—to name all the worst-case scenarios—and not be afraid.
Not Afraid of Bad News
In Psalm 112, the author talks about the character traits of one who fears the Lord, follows his commandments, and lives a righteous life. Then verse seven says, “He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.”
The psalmist knows the bad news will come. He knows what it’s like to live with hardship and struggle and enemies. But he also knows that the steadiness of his heart rests not on the predictability of his circumstances but on the trustworthiness of God.
Charles Spurgeon wrote of this verse:
[The righteous person] is neither fickle nor cowardly; when he is undecided as to his course he is still fixed in heart: he may change his plan, but not the purpose of his soul. His heart being fixed in solid reliance upon God, a change in his circumstances but slightly affects him; faith has made him firm and steadfast, and therefore if the worst should come to the worst, he would remain quiet and patient, waiting for the salvation of God.[2]
Can you even imagine being able to say that you’re not afraid of bad news? Even if you can consider all the worst-case scenarios, none of it scares you?
That’s a trait I desperately want. There’s so much to worry about in this world. As moms, we carry worries not only about our lives but also the lives of our kids. The weight of all of that can crush us—but it doesn’t have to. We will grieve, mourn, and lament, of course. We are broken people living in a fallen world, and we will not escape that heartache until Christ comes again. But in the meantime, fear and worry need not come along for the ride.
Our ability to not fear rests entirely on God’s ability to save. The pages of Scripture and the cloud of witnesses around us testify to the fact that he has saved and he will save. He will do what he’s promised to do: one day making everything right, healing every pain, wiping every tear, restoring all that's been lost. The very resurrection of Jesus attests to that truth.
Friend, I don’t know what fears and worries weigh on your soul today. But I do know that they can feel heavy—sometimes debilitatingly so. They can nag at you and trip you up and keep you discouraged and despairing. But there is a sure foundation we stand on, a God who holds us fast even while the winds and waves beat down. And he will not let us go. Not now. Not ever.
By the grace and power of God, whatever comes our way, may we be able to say with the psalmist, “I am not afraid of bad news. My heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.”
[1] Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2009), 125.
[2] Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Volume 3 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1990), 18.
