Last Sunday after church, I talked to our friend, Caleb Stright, the editor of our newspaper. We discovered we have in common that when we learn something, we can’t wait to share what we’ve learned with others. Also, we recognized that as writers, we are especially blessed because God has given us a platform from which to share the things we’ve learned.

This week when someone who is dear to me went through a difficult time, I knew the Holy Spirit was prompting me to share things He’d begun to teach me many years ago. As I shared, it occurred to me that perhaps what I was sharing was to be the subject of this week’s blog, that maybe some of my readers could also benefit from hearing the lessons God has been reminding me about.

Probably none of you know that many years ago when our children were small, I wrestled a great deal with fear that something bad might happen to them—sometimes the fear became overwhelming. During one of those times, our pastor began to preach on the need for Christians to surrender everything to the Lord. I had received Christ when I was nine years old, but I had never been challenged to make a deeper surrender.

 I wasn’t sure how one took that deeper step of surrender, but one day, I picked up my steno pad and began writing down everything we owned. I surrendered our car, my piano, our furniture and everything I could think of. But when the Holy Spirit prompted me to surrender our children, fear gripped me. Satan immediately superimposed on my mind a picture of our precious children in caskets.  

For a few minutes, I sat motionless. Then I put down my pen. I couldn’t do it. My deep fear became that if I surrendered our children to God, He would take them.

I don’t remember how long this battle went on… whether for days or for weeks. But eventually the day came when I yielded to the Holy Spirit. I got out my tablet and added our children’s names to the list of all I was surrendering to Jesus. Then I signed my name at the bottom of the page.

Immediately the Holy Spirit superimposed a picture in my mind of Jesus holding our precious children, one in each arm. Peace settled in my heart as I recognized how foolish I’d been to think I could take better care of our children than God could.

I also recognized that just because I’d surrendered our children to the Lord didn’t mean that nothing bad would ever happen to them. But my surrender began to release me from my fear. Anytime Satan tried to attack me with fear of something happening to our children, I pictured them in the arms of Jesus and stood on verses from God’s Word like, “Perfect Love casts out fear” (I John 4:18), and “God has not given us a spirit of fear but of love and of power and of a sound mind” (II Timothy 1:7).

Years later, Donn’s very wise Aunt Mildred Nace told me, “I try to hold very tightly to God and very loosely to all that God has given me.” In addition, noted Christian speaker, Peter Marshall, explained that it’s very easy to turn our loved ones into idols whom we think we can’t live without.

Then he added,“There’s lots of people we wouldn’t want to live without, but there’s only one person we can’t live without—and that’s Jesus.”

I’ve never forgotten those words, and I cling to them when I’m tempted to become afraid of bad things happening to my loved ones or tempted to believe that I couldn’t live without them. I remember that, regardless of what my feelings might tell me, there’s only one person I couldn’t live without…

As I meditate on these words, I’m reminded of the words of one of my favorite songs that I seem to hear almost every time I turn on the radio or the worship channel on our television…

If I got Jesus

I’ve got all that I could ever need

Take the world away from me

And I’ll be okay

If I got Jesus
There’s a hope that’s living deep inside
A joy that I could never hide
And a safe place to fall
If I got Jesus, I got it all

If I got Jesus
I got it all…

By Ben Fuller

Forgive us, Father, when we turn our loved ones into idols, believing that we can’t live without them. Help us remember that although there’s lots of people we wouldn’t want to  live without–our loved ones are so dear to us–that in the end, there’s only one person we couldn’t live without. Amen.