As the news escalates, a previously-rare thought is surfacing more: I don’t want to be the grownup. ⁣

I don’t know what I’m doing!⁣

I don’t know if it’s time to wear masks to the store or for my husband to shower when he gets home. I don’t know how to explain that the mall, playground, and library are still off-limits. I don’t know what to do when my kid explodes for no reason aside from that vibe in the air we all feel.⁣

I want someone to tell me if I should be scared. How to act. The right thing to do. Someone to protect me from the brutality of the world. To help me with my big feelings. To make hard things easy.⁣ The way my mom did when I was a kid.⁣

But I’m not a kid anymore. ⁣Now I’m the mom.⁣
⁣
And while I would use up the last of myself to shield my child from the cutting edges of this situation, I am still a child inside, too.⁣ So I cry out to the only person above me now.⁣

Abba.⁣
Daddy.⁣

Thank you, Father God, that you are my help.⁣
That you are bigger and stronger than me.⁣
That you see clearer and farther than this moment.⁣
That I can trust your heart when I can’t trust my own.⁣
That you keep me safe in chaos.⁣

That you are a better grownup than I’ll ever be. Always and forever.⁣

---

“To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?” ― C.S. Lewis⁣
⁣
“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’” [Rom 8:15 NLT]