“We had an incident today,” she said, and standing there in the toddler room of The Kid’s daycare, the thoughts spun around my head like pinballs just released into the machine. That crazy-haired kid hurt him. BRING ME HIS HEAD! Or, TK bit someone; they probably deserved it. She went on to explain that earlier in the day, TK had appeared to have difficulty moving his head and got a little scared–that neck of his being a weak spot–and after I asked a few questions, put him in his car seat and headed home, tears streamed down my face to accompany the fear that coursed through my veins about future injuries and moments when I wouldn’t be around. Will it always be like this? Will I always be afraid?

The fear that haunted me throughout his newborn days woke me the next morning, and I wondered, How do I stay sane as I send my son out into a broken world where he can be hurt?

I did that, the Voice responded, and instantly my thoughts were prayers and I was not alone.

I forget it all the time, how our story is embedded in the greatest one, and how there’s nothing I can feel that hasn’t been felt for me a million times over. Some mornings I’ve imagined a trip to the ER or diagnosed myself with five cancers before I’ve gotten out of bed, because I forget who holds this life. I forget that TK has just been entrusted to me and The Husband on this earth but that he is held by hands so much bigger than ours and that those hands have known pain, have had it engraved into them alongside my name, and TH’s, and TK’s. I forget all that, and I get scared. It’s one of my trouble spots.

I’m not good at facing my trouble spots.

Taking inventory of my strengths wouldn’t be a lengthy process: I’m usually punctual (there was the matter of my birth, to which I arrived three weeks late–sorry, The Mom; but since then my record has been virtually spotless); speaking of spotless, there’s my kitchen floor; and rule-following is a particular forte. But in a reverse of Michael Scott’s reasoning, I find that even my strengths can become weaknesses.

I tend to lord punctuality over certain people who struggle with it (sorry, TH); my head fills with silent screams when crumbs or applesauce hit my pristine floors (sorry, TH and TK); and then there’s the rule-following thing. After almost three decades spent valuing morality over grace, I’ve found myself among the religious hippies who don’t spend as much time worrying about church attendance or an errant off-color word as they do ruminating on God’s perfect, independent-of-me faithfulness. But even that pendulum can swing in the wrong direction, because though grace doesn’t depend on behavior change, it does lead to it, and how often do I make excuses?

In other words, I’m riddled all through with weakness.

The neurosurgeon we saw last week finally said it, that thing I’ve been wondering–that TK’s vertebra is truly unique, that he hasn’t seen this exact anomaly before, which raises the possibility that everything they’re saying, everything they’re trying, is just a guess. And I am so not okay with that being the best we can do for him. This doctor mentioned a nerve block, spinal surgery and the shaving of bones, and as TK played wordlessly in front of us I wanted to scream. So many answers being tossed around with question marks behind them, asterisks beside them. Not good enough. Then I go to my own appointments, follow-up exams and troubleshooting procedures after waiting and disappointment and I am lying on a table once again, waiting for answers in a paper gown, a picture of vulnerability.

I treat God like a service provider, living as though he will enter the room in a white coat, owing me an explanation, and after all my clamoring and sweating I am spent, and I read words like this and this, and I know that the things we need are not always answers. The deepest wounds are often the parents of the greatest revelations. And I read these words: “I am not her savior.”

I feel a weight lift. A weight I had placed there myself. I am not TK’s savior. I am not mine. The world doesn’t depend upon my vigilance to keep spinning the way it was created to.

I know now what I didn’t used to know–that casting my anxiety on him isn’t the same as tossing a dirty load into the washing machine and walking away, reciting a Bible verse and brushing off my hands because all is fixed. It means that I’m casting myself because that anxiety is a part of me, that fear and frustration and need for answers, and when I throw myself into those arms, something changes.

Usually, me.

I walk ahead, not away, with an assurance that this is exactly where we are meant to be, whether this is on a table or in a children’s medical building or at work or at home. I walk with a thankfulness that TK will not be learning about grace second-hand. He will be well-acquainted with it, will know his way all around that building. I walk, knowing that what prepares me for parenthood is not the books I’ve read or the Sunday services I’ve attended or a lack of falling but my own ever-growing acquaintance with grace; the deep wounds that have brought revelations that I’ll share with him. Parenthood–life–is a million moments of courage strung together, of choosing where to put my faith that determines what that courage looks like. Is it a deep breath and gearing up of my own devices? Or maybe it’s a steady leaning, eyes open to good and bad as I define them but willing to believe there’s something deeper that reframes it all. Weak spots? Are they? Funny, I thought they were the places where grace has more room to show up.