Wave 60: The Line Between Faith and Fear

There are moments when you realize you cannot fix everything for the people you love.

You can hold them, listen, reassure them, and do everything you know to do—yet still wish you could take their pain away.I think that is one of the hardest parts of being a mother, especially when the pain comes from other people.

Bullying doesn’t only hurt the child.

It hurts the mother watching her daughter hurt. It disrupts the family’s peace and sleep. It changes the conversations at home. It changes the decisions you make. It changes the way you look at places, people, and situations that once felt ordinary.

Something that happened to one person can somehow find its way into the entire family. And suddenly, everyone is carrying something they never asked to carry.

Sometimes the hardest part is watching your child try to move forward with a good heart.

She may forgive. She may hope things can return to normal. She may still see the good in people who have hurt her. And as a mother, you want to protect that beautiful heart without allowing the world to keep hurting it.

So you start asking questions: Do I stay quiet or do I speak up? Do I talk to the school or the parents? Do I document everything? Do I contact the police? Do I need an attorney? You wish you could do something—anything—to make the pain stop, but you don’t know what the right thing is anymore. You don’t know whether speaking up will make things worse or whether staying quiet will allow it to continue.

Sometimes it feels as though everyone else has an army behind them while you are standing alone, trying to protect your child with everything you have.

And after a while, the constant thinking becomes exhausting. You feel angry. Helpless. Protective. Confused.

And sometimes…empty.

Because you realize that you cannot control what other people say, what they choose to do, or whether they ever understand the damage their actions have caused.

You can only control what you do next. That is where fear enters—not because you lack faith, but because you are human.

I believe God is in control.

He sees what I cannot. He knows what I don’t know. He can protect my child in places I cannot reach. He can open doors that other people try to close.

But that does not mean we never hurt, get angry, or feel afraid. It does not mean I never lie awake wondering whether I am doing enough.

Perhaps faith is not the absence of fear, but being afraid and still choosing to trust. Trusting when you don’t know what tomorrow will bring, when you don’t have all the answers, and when you have done everything you can and the only thing left is to surrender what you cannot control.

I can’t control everything that happens to my child. I can’t make other people change. I can document what I can. I can speak when I need to and stay quiet when silence is wise. I can stand beside my child. And when I don’t know what else to do, I can quietly sit and pray.

Because my child is not only in my hands.

She is in God’s hands, too.

And perhaps the pain we cannot always protect our children from does not have to define them. Sometimes, character is shaped under pressure. Strength is built through the moments we wish they never had to experience. And even through pain, our children can grow into people who are stronger, wiser, more compassionate, and more grounded in who they are.

In the end, the line between faith and fear isn’t about choosing one over the other. Perhaps it is about standing in the middle—feeling the fear, carrying the pain, feeling the emptiness, doing what you can, and trusting God with what you cannot.

There is an even bigger thought underneath all of this.

Bullying is often someone calling you names in a school hallway. But sometimes it is exclusion, ridicule, gossip, judgment, humiliation, pressure, or simply making someone feel like they don’t belong. It can happen to a child, a teenager, or an adult. It can happen at school, at work, within friendships, inside families, or even through people we barely know.

And sometimes, the hardest part is watching someone you love get caught in the waves of outside judgment, humiliation, or pressure.

Maybe Wave 60 is about remembering that faith and fear can exist in the same heart. We can be scared and still trust. We can hurt and still hope. We can feel empty and still believe that somehow, someday, things will be okay.

Have you ever been caught in those waves of judgment, exclusion, humiliation, or pressure? And when the waves reach someone you love, what do you do—you fight, you speak up, you stay quiet, you let go, or you simply hold on and trust?

-TodayWaves

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