When Fear Gives Way to Eternal Focus {Day 25}

Before I had kids, I’d read some email that warned me about how hard it would be to let pieces of my heart walk around outside my body. But I thought it was talking about when the kids grew up and moved out. I was wrong.

Two days before school started, we figured out the school calendar. It listed all the important dates for the school year. Vacation days. Holidays. Field trips. Normally the school calendar is on my personal agenda the day I get my hands on it. (I have a thing for new schedules and fresh calendars.) Believe me I tried the day I got it. But I got stuck days that listed things like Verkehrzersiehung. And voraussichtlich. And Schullandheim. So I put the school calendar away and waited for my friend to come over for coffee. Then I sprung it on her. (Oh, that woman is a gift from God. No doubt about it.)

She kindly translated while I took notes. Day 2 of school: Gottedienst. They would walk to a church and have some kind of service there. That’s cool, I thought. I wish I could go, too. Third day of school: Schulhausrallye. That sounds fun. A game for every class to figure out the lay of the school. With treasures throughout. Then we got to that word at Week 3. Schullandheim. The calendar displayed the word and referred to my oldest daughter’s class in its description. Three days on the school calendar. It’s one of those three-words-that-make-one-word-in-German-which-is-why-they-have-such-long-words-sometimes. Translated separately, the words are School. Country. Home. I learned that day drinking coffee with my friend that my 10-year-old daughter, who speaks very little German would be going on a three-day trip with her class full of schoolmates who speak very little English. Then I kind of freaked out.

Wasn’t it hard enough that we had come all the way here to live for an entire twelve months? Hadn’t we asked enough of our kids, putting them in a German school and praying they would learn quickly how to ask to use the bathroom and other essentials? I mean seriously. Now I was expected to entrust two teachers whom we barely know with our precious little girl who carries my heart around outside of my body? For three days? It was scary. For me. But more so for her. I do not exaggerate even a little when I tell you that she would rather have her orthodontist rip out her glued-in retainer from behind her front teeth than go away with a group of people she did not know and could not understand. For three days.

We tried to get her out of it. My friend and I. She doesn’t know German, my friend texted the teacher. She will learn German. The teacher texted back. And that was that. My daughter’s teacher is also the school principal. She gets the final say. But so does My Man. (Truly. That’s what husbands are called here. As in He’s the Man. And Yes, ladies, that’s right, that’s my man.) So when he got home from work that night, I laid it on thick.

Can you believe they would make her go away for three days? We barely know them! How the heck is she supposed to survive away from us for three days in the land of the Deutsch when she doesn’t even know Deutsch? And what about the food? What if they make her eat Sauerkraut? What if she gets so lonely and afraid that she cries and then her classmates call her a crybaby and she’s not! and the rest of her school year is horrible because her reputation is ruined and they think she’s a wuss? What about that?!?

I worried out loud as my Man listened. I told him what the teacher had texted. And then he said these words: Good. That is exactly what the teacher should have said. We came here to watch God grow our kids. To help them depend on God more fully. We came so they would learn that He is always enough. So they could learn to be brave. And we want her to learn German. What a great opportunity to watch God grow our little girl.

Silence.

Gosh, my Man is so wise. Darn it.

That’s when fear and worry gave way to eternal focus and the truth about what I want for my kids. And focus won.