People are Basically Good and the World is Basically Safe.....Except when they aren't

     No matter what is going on in the world or what jerks or crazies are out there, I really and truly believe people are basically good and the world is basically a safe, wonderful place to be.   Except when it isn't.  Sometimes people have bad intentions or are downright evil.  Sometimes the world around us is safe and beautiful and we are perfectly at ease.  Sometimes, even places you think should be safe can hold untold danger.  No matter what, we can't live in a bubble or in a perpetual state of fear.
     Fear is such a primal state.  It serves a purpose by causing a fight or flight response.  Fear, however, is not a place we're meant to live.  Mostly because it is such a powerful emotion.  Fear involves not only the now, but the what if's of the future.  It denies there is hope, and goodness.  Recently, my family experienced a trauma.  As a parent, we wear our hearts on the outside of our bodies in the funny little shapes of our children.  When something happens, it is not as if it is happening to us, it is happening to us.  They are flesh of our flesh.
     It was one of those parenting moments when one of our children moves out of eyesight for truly what is a split second.  We call their name, no response.  We rapidly turn our heads like an owl, only not to see them.  We think we must know where they've gone, but when we look there, our hearts pound when they are not in sight.  Panic sets in.  A crazy mix of fear and anger start to take hold the more frantic you become.  Did you know that 800,000 children go missing per year?  Have you ever glanced at the flyers on your way out of Walmart?   This girl, gone missing at 2, this is what she'd look like today, 10 years later.  You think how horrible it must be for that family, as you look at your own child and continue your way out the door.
     Well, it happened to me.  Don't worry, there's a happy ending.  Hand in hand the man who had our child walked.    He walked into a back deserted parking lot at a local festival.  Already a good way into the lot, my husband caught up with him and laid him out.  He saved our precious child.  A child young enough to not know what was awaiting them.  Me, old enough to know what was going to happen.  "I promise you won't get hurt if you don't tell on me", echoed out of my baby's mouth, in a tiny voice, that just didn't get the heavy weight of those words.  Home.  Getting back home, with our children, into safety, was all I could think about.  You know, and maybe lock the doors because I had already lost one of them once that day.  To control the bits and pieces of life around me in some vain attempt to stop this out of control feeling.  Sleep.  I needed sleep.
     The next day I woke feeling as if I had been hit by a truck.  The flu?  No, I didn't have a fever.  One of my fibromyalgia flare ups?  No.  I realized as I sat in bed, it was fear trapped in my body.  Fear had served its purpose, but I wasn't letting it go.  The fear of having almost lost my child had served its purpose, but the fear was poisoning my body now.  Have you ever had daymares.  Where you are daydreaming, but it is all bad, just really bad.  The daymare where I was called into the morgue to identify my child.  Yes, I have a degree is stress, with a minor in wallowing in it, and am working hard on my masters in the worst what if's possible.   
     You know, there is always reason to hope.  I did not lose my child, but if I had, I would have had to celebrate their short life.  Thankful that I had the honor of being their mother.  Mostly importantly because each and every one of us is unique and had a very special purpose on this earth.  The world would be so very different if you or I didn't exist.  I've experienced a lot of death in my life.  Enough, that I should be spiraled down into a despair so deep not even God could release me.  We humans are resilient.  Remarkably so.  We have that spark of divine life in us.  We have the cross, but we also have the resurrection.  To know, that no matter how dark the night, there is the coming dawn.   It's ok.  I can bare pain, all types of pain, and still be ok.  I can trust that God can and does bring good out of the worst most horrific situation.
     I can.  I can trust.  I can trust God.  I can trust that God loves me as his own precious child.  He hurts when I hurt.  He sheds tears when I shed tears.  Oh the tears I shed!  We must love, cherish, appreciate, and experience.  The good and the bad.  We must not fear the bad.  We must not fear that the bottom will drop out of our goodness.  This life of ours is about seasons and changes.  The reality is that this life is sometimes hard, heartless, painful and cruel.  The purpose of this life is to live.  Live hope, live love, live to give comfort, live as Christ in this world.  In light of the cross, suffering makes sense, without it suffering is overwhelming and something to fear.  We can't choose the things that happen to us, but we can choose how we react to them.
     In that moment when I was sitting on the bed I chose to not let the fear of losing my child rule over me.  We could go crazy asking why.  Why is this happening?  Sometimes we have to choose to say I don't understand, there is no sense to this, then keep moving forward, even amidst the fear.  Jesus I Trust in You.  I trust.  I trust.  And it's true.  No matter what, I really believe that people are basically good and well meaning.  This world really is a beautiful place to live.  I'm not going to miss all the goodness and love in this world by giving pain and suffering their improper due.
     I believe, because I know the world is full of people like me, and the people that aren't are aberrations.   I'm not a fool, I know things could have turned out differently.  What I am in is not a state of denial.  Why some children have to suffer that fate and mine didn't is difficult to wrap my head around.  Even as the next day came and we headed out into the world, I knew it would be ok.  I'm not glad this happened, who would be.  However, I do know we'll all come out stronger on the other side, no matter what the outcome would have been.  We're still suffering lingering effects of that day, but we will heal from them.  We will heal, and we will continue living this beautiful life.