Fifteen years ago, my youngest son told me that he had enlisted in the army. Guessing my reaction, he waited to tell me until it was unalterable. When I realized there was nothing I could do to change it, I moaned that something terrible might happen. I’ll never forget his response, and I remember it every time he’s deployed. “I’m in God’s hands and He’s in control of what happens to me here and everywhere.” Although he didn’t quote Psalm 139, there were definitely echoes of it…“You hem me in behind and before, and lay your hand upon me…if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast…all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” He pulled the “spiritual card” on me, and it worked. How do you argue with that?? But, in 2005, it didn’t lessen the pain of watching him board the army bus and be taken away from me and eventually to the far side of the sea.

He was deployed to Afghanistan again this week. I’ve lost track of all of his deployments, and with every one there’s a place in me that’s uneasy and unsettled until he’s back. Yet, God meets me in that place with tender compassion, and asks me to trust His sovereign care. I can’t imagine the anxiety if I didn’t believe that God is absolutely sovereign and absolutely loving. There is an inexplicable peace that flows over the uneasiness because I know God is God, and He wrote the first day and last day of my son’s stories before they were conceived and carries them every day in between. That is unalterable Truth.

But I’m human. Sometimes it’s hard to trust. Sometimes fear wells up in my throat. Then I just lean into the great compassion and goodness of God and ask Him to help me trust Him more.