a day in the life of me: fearful blessings

My wife and oldest had a few delays in getting home, but they finally did... around 2:30am. I'd waited up, which meant my wife and I hit the pillow at 4am. Then I got up at 8am to go serve my church and teach... then a potluck... then come back home and find out our neighbors lost a beloved family member... then dinner with some friends in the church... then home... for a long day.

No complaints, though. Once again our family is all under the same roof.

My wife asked if I was afraid that they wouldn't make it home because of all the airport delays and snow on the ground when they drove back. I said that there are two types of fears in such moments...

• The "What if?" reactionary fear: This is the kind of fear that takes you to bad places... your mind considers the worst and then begins to taking a road trip to see how bad that "worst" would actually be. This kind of fear will motivate people to make reactionary actions like random phone calls, turning to the wrong people/things, and so on to try to control their seemingly uncontrollable emotions.
  
  
• The "What if?" responsive fear: This fear also plays out the "What if?" question but does it to build a safety net. In this case, I called my dad to let him know my wife and son might be stuck in Chicago (near where he lives). He put himself on standby if they needed a place to stay and was willing to pick them up at the airport if need be.

I also realized a third kind of fear, though... the fear that I would forget what it means to not have these two around. In a few days when life is "normal" again I hope to remember how special it is to see someone you haven't seen in a while for the first time again. I'm afraid I might forget how amazing it is to live in those few seconds... so I hope to read this post again and again to remember.

So it's a good day... even if I am a bit sleepy and have plowed my driveway more than a few times (we did get blasted by some intense snow).