Scary Stories

While reading a bedtime story to one of the children I nanny, I found him snuggling up close to me. At one point, he hid his face in my shirt and said, "I'm scared". I reassured him of my presence by drawing him closer to me and letting him hear my voice telling him that I was there. Then, with him in my arms, I continued on with the story; -- Granted, I did skip some of the violence, but read enough that he knew the climax of the scary part. -- He breathed a sigh of relief as the conflict began to resolve and opened his eyes to see the full resolution and illustrations at the end. When it was all over, he had many questions and a story of his own to share.

I suppose I would have stopped the story if his stress level had become too high, of probably even if he had asked me to stop reading. Yet, he wanted to know how it would all turn out in the end, and he trusted me enough to know I would stop if it was absolutely too much. I was greatly pleased that he chose to cling to me as his nanny and storyteller, rather than running somewhere else. The fact that he could tell me he was scared showed me he trusts me to acknowledge his feelings as valid, and to embrace him when he's down. Even if he couldn't look at the pictures, he still knew the story because I was there sharing it with him.

Maybe we can all learn a little something from this child. When life is like the story that was a little scary, maybe we can bury our face in the garments of our Lord. Let us trust that we will not be rejected, but that instead, we will be received with love and gentleness. Let us have trust and confidence in our Lord to know how the story ends and to tailor the problems to what we can handle in our spiritual maturity level. And may we come to feel the presence and hear the voice of our Lord in whatever times we find ourselves in.

In Jesus' name,
amen.