Fear is a thief. I say this as a father whose pockets have been picked many times. I’ve had countless moments of peace snatched from my hands. Hours of sleep pilfered. Excellence replaced with adequacy, because my mind was elsewhere.
Where, exactly? On what could go wrong. An illness, a car accident, a vicious dog on a frayed leash. I am a walking encyclopedia of worst-case scenarios. Go ahead, name something children do every day, and I can tell you a dozen ways they could get hurt, crippled, killed. Where someone else might see a toddler riding his tricycle down the driveway, I see a careless UPS driver behind the wheel of a two-ton truck. A walk on the nature trail? Poisonous snakes. Family cookout? Exploding propane tank.
I was this way before my daughter died from a brain tumor, but that nightmare certainly made it worse. Enduring horror makes you realize the worst things don’t always happen to other people. They happen to you.
But fear, like I said, is a thief. When I invite it to lean over my shoulder and whisper in my ear while I’m working or praying or playing with my children, I invite it to confiscate the small joys that are our only solace in a world of hardship. How foolish, how cruel, to let what has not come to pass steal all that remains untarnished by what did come to pass.
I share this with you because this is a fearful time for many of us. Fear of the coronavirus, of a sagging economy, of what our fellow humans are capable of when they too are afraid. If you need a few dozen other looming troubles to tremble over, I’m the man to see. But right now I’m the man reminding you that there’s good all around you. That the darkness will always and ever have no choice but to retreat in the face of even a little light. That it only wins when we clamp shut our eyes.
So today, and tomorrow, and maybe even the day after that, spend a little time noticing the good. Gratitude has always been the undoing of fear. This world is full of suffering, yes, but it is also filled with goodness. See that. Be a part of that. Don’t let the thief in.