A Spring of Joy

A repost from years ago, because I need the daily reminder that He is with us:

The children love to climb the ladder to our attic and explore. I needed a few things so I asked for their help, happy to incude them in our daily tasks. The boys were up top grabbing the items we needed and handing them down to me. Bella-girl stood on the ladder with me behind her holding her so she wouldn’t fall. She began climbing down, and one of the boys began moving things back into place, finishing their job and not seeing what was coming…

“Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!” I heard the other boy shouting, insistently, almost fearfully.
It was too late.
Looking up, I saw it rolling. A barbell with weights on it. At least 20 pounds of metal and bolts and pain falling towards us, right on top of her.

Then I heard her screams as I pinned the weight beside me with my bad arm (I don’t know how) to the back of the ladder.
The boys’ faces, white, peered from the attic hole and Bella’s wails of “Oh, it burns! It BURNS!” pierced. I grabbed her with my left arm, the weight with my right, and climbed down the ladder, trying to soothe her screams.
“Is there blood?” she asked through sobs. I was terrified to see what had happened.
I looked.
No.
In fact.
There was nothing.
From a human standpoint, I have no idea how she was uninjured.
The weight must have only grazed her lip.
I don’t know how.
But I do know how.
It was God’s protection over my child.
And it was protection over the heart of a little boy who didn’t see the weight he accidentally knocked out… over the heart of another boy who saw it coming but couldn’t stop it… over the heart and body of a little girl who could have been horribly injured.

“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” she kept saying it over and over, like a mantra. She just needed me close. Then she finally said, “If you hadn’t been there…”
“But I was, dear girl. I was.”

The illusion of control, as my sweet friend, Beth, says…
I like to think I have it.
I don’t. And it’s moments like these in our ordinary days that remind me I am not in control of anything.
But He is.

And He spared my girl today. He spared all of us.
It’s the daily reminder I need. That He is in control. He is guarding and protecting us.
Honestly, I shook for at least an hour after this happened. I hyper-ventilated in the bathroom and called Brian to talk me down from a panic attack.
What might have been attacks me and plagues me still…

As I look back over my life, there is so much pain, so many falls, and I find myself crying, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” like a mantra. I need Him close, “If YOU hadn’t been there…”
I hear His whispered reply…
“But, I am, dear girl. I am.”