My New Year's Resolution

Trying to act as if everything is all right, I tell Charlie my husband, “I’ll go grocery shopping while you drop off our rental skies.” Everyone was hungry so it didn’t seem like an unusual request.
Charlie stops at Safeway and I gingerly hop out. His truck pulls away and I hobble straight to the Starbucks inside of Safeway. I’m a mess. My legs feel like they have been torn apart. My cute ski suit that I got for Christmas, a lime green jacket and black stretch pants, that screams active winter sport enthusiast, surely can’t hide the fact that I am seriously hurting.
I join the line at Starbucks and wait for someone to engage me in conversation like, “What happened to you?” But nobody does.
“Oh my goodness,” I have to talk to someone, but I don’t want to sound desperate, so I strike up conversation in my own head. “Don’t tell anyone, but my husband can ski super fast. Gees, I simply don’t recall him being so fast. But, it’s been seven years since we’ve been skiing and a lot has happened. I have four kids now.  See, things just don’t work the same way as before. I tried really hard to keep up with him. For two days, I stayed in control.”
“Do your kids ski too?” asks the other side of my head pretending to make conversation.
“Not exactly. We put the two oldest in ski school for the two days, but it was really crowded and I should have known better not to expect miracles. But no, I just had to take them up the bunny hill, the hardest slope on the entire mountain, to go skiing with them. I’ve been waiting a really long time to take our kids skiing and I just couldn’t wait any longer. That’s when it happened.”
“Yeah, I can see that you are all banged up. What happened?”
“I was in charge of my second son, James. We got off the lift just fine. We started down the mountain and before I could say, “turn James,” we were headed for the guardrail. The next thing I know, I’m trying to save James from hitting the guardrail, but I loose control and end up doing the splits and stopping us with my chin against the guardrail. My head felt like its was going to twist off my body.”
“Oh gees, that sounds bad.”
“Oh yeah! It was. But you know us moms. We stand back up smiling so that our kids don’t freak out. Honestly, though, I just don’t know how much longer I can keep up. Lately, everything feels like a down hill race on skies. My husband is going a million miles per hour trying to support our family and I keep trying to protect our kids. I just wrote a book about it.”
“A book?”
“Yeah, it’s called The Code of Destiny. It’s about a mom who feels sandwiched between her wounds of the past and worries about the future health of her children. It’s being published this month, hopefully. It’s a good book, really!” I try to sound convincing. But today is a prime example of living on the bookcase stuck between the bookends called “the wound” and “the worry.” I am so afraid of my children dying young that I will do anything to keep them alive …even stopping their fall by hitting my chin against the guardrail.
“So, does this mom ever stop worrying?” My brain counteracts, knowing that this is a huge problem.
“Hum…” I think about my problem as I move forward towards my little piece of heaven called a latte. “I know the answer to my problem, it has something to do with God, but I can’t turn my worry over to Him. It’s complicated. You are just going to have to read my book!” I tell myself trying to get out of discussing the God issue.
“What would you like?” It’s a real voice from a tired lady behind the counter.
“A tall, sugar-free vanilla, breve latte.” I respond speaking each word with clear precision. “And, a venti black coffee for my husband.”
I pay her and no words are spoken again. In fact, no one makes conversation the entire time I’m in line. I’m just dying to tell someone my story.
I guess that is why I wrote my book. I have to think that most of us play this tug-of-war game. Something in our past has hurt us and we worry about it happening again to our loved ones or to ourselves. So each and every day we make decisions trying to prevent this hurt from happening again. Today it happened on the ski slopes.
“When will I stop over compensating and just let my kids ski down the slope?” I ask myself.
“Never!” The other side of my brain screams.
It’s hard to trust, especially in God. Oh, I know He is out there, somewhere. But is He right here on the ski slopes? I doubt it and that is my past wound. Where was He when I needed Him the most? So, I go about my days trying to control everything. But on this day, unfortunately, I couldn’t control James and I on skies!
So, I decided that my New Year’s resolution should be to stop worrying and to trust God. I already know that this particular resolution is going to be hard to keep.
The next day, we drive home in a snowstorm. I worried the entire way home.
The day after that, we went to the Fiesta Bowl to see Charlie’s favorite team play and I fretted over each play. Thankfully, University of Texas won, but my stomach was tied in knots and I felt terrible for the Ohio fans!
I can’t help it! That’s what I do. I worry about everything!
I need a bridge to connect with God. Is it His word? Faith? Jesus? The Holy Spirit? I suppose it is all of that and more. I don’t know the answer, but that is what I’m going to work on this year.
Any suggestions?