If I’m standing and I close my eyes, I wobble. It’s a balance thing. It’s about proprioceptors, something medically-multi-syllabic, I dunno. During church, when we’re standing and the pastor says “bow your heads to pray,” I bow my head, shut my eyes, and reach for the chair in front of me. It steadies me and keeps me from weaving drunkenly at 9 a.m. on the Sabbath.

Touching something solid helps me fight the wobble.

Our family is jumping into some changes in the coming weeks. My kids are going to school this year rather than schooling at home with me. And I’ll be teaching, but I’m teaching mostly other people’s kids. These are good changes (Stupendous! Exciting! Thrilling!), opportunities we chose, but the scary is real at our house as the first day of school approaches.

As one of my kids put it, “We’re all a bit ‘Nerv-Cited.’”

As I ponder all of the New looming ahead- new uniforms, new schedules, new teachers, new expectations, new curriculums, new faces, new community… I feel the need to grab the chair in front of me just typing the list. The swirl of worry and So Many Unknowns makes me feel a bit wobbly. I wonder how to make my kids feel secure when I feel as if our little family ship is headed for Adventure Falls.

Speaking of ships, remember Odysseus? When he sailed through the dangerous waters near the Sirens, he ordered his men to lash him to the mast of the ship. He anchored himself to the only thing that could keep him safe through the danger.

The things on the horizon for us aren’t dangerous, really, but they are Unknown. We’ve even had the blessing of time to prepare and make a plan. But I can’t make my kids (and myself) not feel nerv-cited, I can’t make every transition smooth, every assignment easy, every classmate a friend. I’m the Grown-Up, not their fairy godmother.

But I can model for them how to hold on tight so they don’t wobble when the change comes. Realistically, not all changes that come into my kids’ lives in the future will be good. And they may not have happy endings, not until Jesus comes back.

Maybe if my kids see me clinging, arms and legs wrapped tightly and eyes screwed shut, to the One True Thing –  if they see me in the Word, praying my nerves out loud, admitting when I’m scared and that I’m trusting Jesus to hold us all in His hand, if I keep pointing them to Truth when the world brings them questions… then maybe they’ll learn how to hold tight when change – and ordinary life – swirls around them.

This morning in church we sang the words:

“You are my Rock, and You never change.”

I closed my eyes to take it in, grasped the chair in front of me, and braced myself against the wobble. My security is in Christ. His grace is enough. His strength is sufficient. And His glory is already achieved. So now we hold on tight for the ride…

My son had to have emergency surgery recently. He’s fine now, but this isn’t really about that. When I got the call that he needed surgery and had to be transported to the only surgeon on call at 2 am, I made arrangements for my other children and jumped in the van to go meet up with my son and my husband.

I made my way cautiously down the main highway toward the hospital. I had praise and worship music playing, I was singing and reassuring myself that my son would be fine. This wasn’t that big of a deal. And then I crested the top of a hill close to the ER and I saw an ambulance pull out and onto the road, headed for another hospital. My son’s ambulance was four stoplights ahead of me, lights flashing, pace hurried.

I was undone.

It didn’t matter that I was 99% sure of the outcome of the evening, nothing prepares a mama for watching her baby’s ambulance careen down a highway. Or for being just far enough back that all she can do is watch and try not to run any red lights.

I sobbed, I cried out to Jesus. My prayers that had been calm and surface beforehand became short, choppy phrases yammered out in hiccups and broken wails. I talked to myself, I talked to God, I called out a few rejoinders to the ambulance driver I’d never met. And then… surrender. The tears stopped rolling down my face. I’d gone from clutching everything tightly in my hand to just leaning in and unclenching my fists. Whatever happened… I was resting in Him for strength. I drew a deep breath and whispered my thanks for a faithful God who held that ambulance and its contents more firmly than I ever could.

Later, when we were home and my boy was resting upstairs, I sat on my porch to breathe a prayer of thanks. I relived that vision of the ambulance flashing ahead, the parental terror it invoked. And I heard His voice: “I can relate. I see those I made in my image, who I love, are suffering… I see the emergency, I see the need. My desire is to restore, protect, and Be Beside.”

And in my tiny, human way, I had a moment of clarity. I absorbed that fierce parental love that will slay dragons and collect speeding tickets to save a child. I thought about the moments when my kids aren’t in physical danger, but their souls hang in the balance. I want to swoop in and save them then, too. But I’m about as good at saving souls as I would be with a scalpel. There’s nothing more terrifying, or more necessary than placing your kid in the hands of someone else, even if Someone Else loves them far more than you do.

And make no mistake, worried parent. His love is the lights flashing, sirens blaring, tearing down highway 280 with a total disregard for red lights kind of urgent. His pursuit is relentless.

Because God didn’t just watch helplessly from the hill behind, wringing his hands and wondering what to do. No. He came down the hill, he rescued us from the very worst emergency: sin and separation from Him. And then He called us daughter… son. And every time those sirens wail, the lights spin in frantic concern, He is with us. Not following behind at a safe distance, but with us, moving and acting according to His plan that is far greater than we can conceive of.

So on the days when the sirens wail or the scalpel cuts the soul rather than skin, I’ve no choice, no greater gift, than to rest us all in Him and surrender to the ferocity of Love that stops for no red light.

Glory to the One who hears our Siren Song and does not leave us alone in our emergency.