Fear

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Wow, two posts in one night!  Because this one will show up on other blogs as the most recent one I've written, be sure to read that one next to provide some context :)

Night two of Martin being gone - tonight I went to bed without my cell phone.  I was feeling particularly confident that I would have a good night's sleep and didn't need that extra "security."  In our old house, when Martin left, I didn't sleep a wink all night because we had NO neighbors.  I always thought "If I scream, nobody can hear me!" Since we've lived here, I have felt safe; we are in a great neighborhood with people very close by.  We know our neighbors, and for sure if I screamed here, I would be heard.  Plus, we live across the street from a court judge who has some great connections, and that just makes me happy.

Tonight, however, I felt fear like I have never felt it before.  I'm normally not a "fearful" person.  I do fear bees, especially black bumblebees, and they send me running for my life.  My only other real fear in my life has been someone breaking into my house.  Maybe it's from too many 20/20 episodes, or from hearing someone knock on my bedroom window in the middle of the night when I was a little girl.  That's about it: bees, and someone breaking in.

So, back to tonight.  I went to bed around 11pm without my cell phone near me, feeling rather confident after having a good night's sleep last night.   I fell asleep after about 10 minutes and awoke at 2:15am to use the restroom.  I glanced at the boy's bedroom door and heard silence and knew Micah was sleeping (Jaden was on our bed).  On the way out I turned off the bathroom light, which I had left on earlier for comfort, thinking "It's almost morning now!"  Yeah, right.

About 10 minutes after returning to bed, I started to doze off again when I began hearing things.  I heard some footsteps, and then they stopped (we have wood floors under our carpet so you can hear everything).  I heard sounds of someone trying to be quiet and not be heard.  This continued for a few minutes.  My heart has never beat so hard.  I am pretty sure I almost had a panic attack.  I listened for about 15 minutes.

During that 15 minutes, many scenarios went through my head.  I was breathing heavily, I was sweating.  I was lying on my stomach with my eyes wide open, imagining what would happen to my children if I were killed and would they get hurt too.  I wondered if there was a way I could get to the phone without being heard, but every time I moved the bed made a noise.  I felt paralyzed by fear.  During that 15 minutes, I prayed.  A lot.  But my prayers did not even make sense and were all over the place.  It was mainly just "Jesus, help me.  Jesus, protect me."

The worst part was the silence in between.  Then I would hear movement again, then silence.  It sounded like someone did not want to be found out.

At 2:30am, somehow I mustered the courage to get out of bed, and I was shaking.  I got up quickly and rushed down the hallway to turn on the light.  I saw Micah's bedroom door closed and I panicked again.  My mind went crazy as I pictured an intruder in there with my son.

I ran down the hall and opened his door, and found Micah sitting on Jaden's bed in the dark.  I panicked again.  Then I saw it.  Micah was eating a Cars Lollipop from his birthday party.  He broke the silence by saying, "Mommy, I want water!"

This boy is going to give me a heart attack, I tell you.  One day he will read this story and laugh.  But I am not laughing.  Now I cannot go back to sleep, and he is up from a sugar high.  What do we do now? Play games?  I am up blogging because it is the only therapy option I have right now!!  

What is the moral of this story?  I have no idea.  It is 2:57am.  I guess the moral is, many of the things we fear never end up happening.

Lord, thank you for protecting us tonight.  Now please excuse me while I TRY to go back to sleep!