Fear as a Catalyst for Prayer

My son was slated to leave at 6 the next January morning to drive from Seattle to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In my northern California home, I could not sleep.

I kept thinking about the frigid conditions in eastern Washington and Montana he’d drive through: projected high four degrees, possible snow.

He wasn’t used to driving in those conditions and it would take a good twelve hours, maybe longer, in good weather.

A college graduate, he was determined.

And traveling alone.

“Call me every three hours, or whenever you stop,” I begged.

He laughed off my fears. “No problem.”

I could not sleep and so I prayed.

And prayed.

And prayed: for the weather, for wisdom, for protection for him. I asked God to keep him alert, conscious of the other drivers, and careful.

I put him into God’s hands and left him there.

For an hour or two until I woke up again and prayed once more.

At seven o’clock I got up, checked the weather and considered a different route through Idaho. It would take longer, but my son was more used to driving in rain than snow.

The first call came at eight o’clock. He was twenty miles past the turn off south to Idaho and wouldn’t backtrack. “I’ll be fine.”

I couldn’t plant any seed of my fear in him–he needed to be confidant and alert–so I assured him I was confidant he’d do fine.

I lied.

What to do with my fear?

What would you do?

1 John 4:18 tells us “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.”

I certainly was in torment, but wasn’t sure how love figured in this instance. Was my fear an indication I didn’t love God enough? Didn’t trust him enough?

I prayed some more, but still wasn’t finding respite. So I put him down our church’s prayer line. I asked my friends on Facebook to pray for him. I appealed to friends on World Magazine‘s (now defunct) blog.

My Christian friends tried to reason with me–some of them had children in far more potentially serious situations than my son. Intellectually, I agreed with them completely. Yet the fear clutched at me.

So I prayed for his safety, more.

He called at lunch time, perfectly fine. I relaxed a little, but still . . . I prayed.

Snow and black ice in Montana.

He missed the three hour call-in.

I prayed more.

At four hours, I called him. “Where are you?” I put gaiety in my voice.

“A couple miles outside of Missoula,” he said.

“How are things going?”

“I just totalled my car.”

His tone sounded so matter-of-fact, I nearly missed what he said. When he told the story, I felt terrified and then relieved.

The prayer worked.

“I was driving with a pack of cars, the way you do on an Interstate. I had just passed a large truck and gone into the lead. As I moved from the fast lane on the left into the slower on the right, I hit black ice. My jeep starting spinning across the road. Everyone slowed down.”

He went across the road, not hitting the truck he had just passed. The jeep slid off into a barbed wire fence, it rolled three times coming to a rest on its wheels facing backwards. Before he really knew what had happened, the “pack” stopped and people ran to him.

“What did you do next?” I asked, my gut roiling.

“I unclicked the seat belt and climbed out the back of the jeep. I’m waiting for the highway patrol now.”

I’m thankful to report that while his car was totalled, he was healthy. EMTs checked him out at the scene and released him to deal with the wreckage.

If I have asked you to pray and you did so, thanks. If someone else asks you to pray–even about something which seems trivial–please do so.

You never know how God will use your petitions.

Thanks, St. Mark Prayer chain, Facebook friends and World Magazine bloggers.

What do you do with your fears?