Some Nights I go to Sleep Terrified

It happened again. Another young life lost in a freak accident. We see it every day. We hear it every day.

It's in the call from family saying an eighteen year old was hit by a car.

It's in the news that a cousin lost her twenty year old to drinking and drugs.

It's in a coworker's announcement her nine year old niece's cancer returned.

It's national news that a family lost a toddler to a tragic accident with the wildlife of nature.

It's in the message sent warning parents a sex trafficker is in the area picking up kids.

It's in the social media pages asking for donations for a little girl hit by a truck while riding her scooter.

It's in the asking of prayers for a healthy young athlete that suddenly passed in his sleep.

It's in the church's announcement that one of their youth succumbed to a brain eating bacteria caught while on a church trip

Tragedy snatches our youth and children away in a blink. It's in the stranger we don t know lurking in the shadows near by, it's in the monster of disease and illness silently living in their body, it's in that one poor decision that is common for youth to make that costs them their life, it's in the stranger driving by at the wrong time in the wrong place.

I lie awake at night terrified. Will I be next? Will it be me one day whose world is shattered with the loss of a child? Can I even stop it. Even if I stripped my child of his or her independence to keep them under my watchful eye at all times is that any way for them to grow up? What of the dangers that could be lurking within their own body?

At night as the darkness closes in on us our greatest fears creep out of the shadows. They claw at us, consuming us in waves of anxiety at times. The dangers of letting our children live life is terrifying. As scary as it is we can't protect them from everything; if we want to allow them any chance of living life and gaining independence we can't be there every second of their life. As my dad once said you teach them what you can to be safe and make good decisions and you pray. We pray they make good choices, we pray they know how to avoid dangerous situations, and we pray luck is on their side and they're not the next tragedy because tragedy is out there lurking and we lay there at night terrified, praying we're not next, and we pray for comfort and peace for those that are. We hold our children tight, absorbing every moment we can, warding off the fear that the next tragedy is coming for us.