Nothing to fear but fear itself

I can laugh about it now... but at the time I was just plain freaked out.

You see, I'm a worry wart at times. It's a trait that I wish I could change. Especially in the wee hours of the morning when my blood sugars drop and I'm not thinking straight... like early Sunday morning.

Our eldest daughter went out Saturday evening with a friend whose 18th birthday was on St. Paddy's day. For those who don't know, the legal drinking age in Alberta is 18 (I know, too young... but facing facts, a lot of kids are stealth-drinking long before that anyway). So our girl's plan for Saturday evening was to have some green beer at an Irish pub on Whyte Ave to mark Megan's birthday. It was discussed and agreed upon long in advance, in spite of the fact that we were supposed to be singing at church the next day (a good thing -- another reason not to end up hung over). Off she went, with cab fare in her pocket.

Unfortunately, at 1:15 a.m. I woke up (I don't usually do that unless my blood sugars have gotten too low -- I have type 1 diabetes) and realized that the front light (left on for our late daughter) was still on. And here's roughly what went through my head:

She's not home yet! She said she was going to have a green beer and come home because we're singing in the morning. But she's not home yet! What if something happened to her? What kind of an idiot mother am I to allow my barely legal daughter to go partying on Whyte Avenue all alone? She's not home yet! What if she doesn't come home? What will we do? I can't manage singing at church alone! How will we find her? Oh, we can call the cell phone. No answer! What's going on? Where can she be?

And on it goes, for another twenty minutes, with me fretting and imagining nightmarish scenarios of drunk drivers and murderers and drunk tanks and bar fights and other ridiculousness, while my husband is laying in bed beside me, muttering, "the bars haven't even let out yet."

I pray for a while and fret some more. I can't relax. My heart is pounding in my ears.

Wait!

My heart is pounding in my ears?!

That always happens when my blood sugars drop too low. I get up, get some apple juice, go back to bed, and fall asleep. Near two a.m. I hear our daughter at the door. I get out of bed, give her a hug and ask how her evening was. Of course, she had a great time dancing with a big group of friends while I was fretting about her, my blood sugars down in the basement somewhere. I go back to bed, thinking, now how stupid has the last hour of my life been, worrying about a child who has never given me cause to doubt her levels of maturity and responsibility?

Jesus said, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own." More recently, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in one of his inaugural speeches said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

In my case, I have nothing to fear but the fretful thinking that comes with low blood sugars! How blessed I am!