I’m spending more time outside these days. If I’m not off wandering in the woods somewhere, I’m in my hammock in my front yard or sitting on my front porch with a book. In this unseasonably and delightfully warm winter we’re having, I was journaling on my front porch the other night around nine. It was dark, and the moon was full and high. With a crisp breeze, the 70-degree temperature made it feel like the start of autumn and not the middle of winter. One dog sat at the door and watched, the other stretched out across my feet enjoying the night air, too. A car turned at the corner and drove down my street. It wasn’t one I recognized, but it was one that caused me to look up from my pages. It was a dark car with even darker tint on the windows. You could hear the music playing through the closed windows. The tires were larger than typical and the rims were shiny and spinning. My breath caught in my throat and I paused a moment. Another car of a similar description turned shortly after and followed down the street.
About a year ago, there was a shooting on my street. It was one block down, and it happened in the middle of the day. I might never have known about it if a neighbor hadn’t mentioned it. It was drug related, and isolated. But still, a car drove by the home and fired multiple shots at a home maybe 100 yards down the street.
Two nights prior, I was sharing my heart with a friend. I was talking about my neighborhood and its dangers, and I mentioned telling my mother that I was trusting the Lord to keep me safe in this season. My friend’s husband said, “yes, but maybe that protection is your mother telling you not to do it.” I can’t shake off his comment. It has stuck with me.
On Saturday, I rode my bike over Seventh to go to Five Points. It’s a hilly route, but the most direct for me to get there. A neighbor told me not long after I moved in, that I should never drive through Cayce, day or night, but certainly not at night. And then I remember the little boy, maybe 6 or 7 years old who stopped playing one day to say, “Bitch, give me your bike.” I’m not naive. I know what happens in my neighborhood. I have never once been fearful for my personal safety. Nothing has happened to give me fear. But on this day, riding my bike over Seventh, two officers pulled out to drive the opposite direction. One of them turned around and followed me back over the hill to the red light. He never said a word to me, but I know he turned around after he saw me, and he stayed behind me until I arrived at Shelby and went straight as the light turned green.
Fear. It is a dangerous and crippling thing. It holds my heart hostage and keeps me from doing the things I know the Lord is calling me into. I am realizing I cannot fully surrender to God because I am afraid. I’m afraid of what it will cost me. I’m afraid of where it will take me. I don’t want to go to Africa or China. I want to live in my bubble of safety in my tiny hobbit house. But I also want to know my Savior on a real and intimate way. I don’t want a safety bubble around that relationship. I don’t want to keep him at an arm’s length away. I want to embrace Him. I want to sit at his feet listening and seeking. And I want to get up from that cross and go and do and follow. I want to be the hands and feet, and you can’t do that with a guarded heart.
But then I think how much easier it would be to have someone walking beside me in this. To have a husband who loves this neighborhood as much as I do. To not be a single female alone in a home surrounded by crime and poverty and brokenness. To have the freedom to invite people into my home without fear of being alone. And then I fall back into that pit of hopelessness after praying for something for seven years and not seeing any movement or progress. Not even a sketch on the canvas. But his promises… yes and amen, right? That’s my word. That’ll preach. That’s what I want to cling to in this season. I want to be so focused on the cross that my husband has to seek it to find me. But dang it, that’s hard. It’s hard because it’s more waiting. It’s more blank canvas.
I don’t know how to surrender because I don’t know how to let go of my fear. And to hear about our partner in Iraq. How do I ignore the bullets and the statistics in my own world? How do I not stand out as a white woman in my world that is so different? I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to relate. I don’t know those struggles. I don’t know what it’s like to live in public housing? I don’t know how to be a friend and not a savior. My job is not to save the people in my neighborhood; my job is to point them to the savior, and I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to reach across the aisle. I am scared, and that fear is keeping me from truly surrendering.