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Daddy, I’m Scared

One winter night it was very late and I was tired. My cell phone rang. It was one of our daughters. The moment I heard her voice I knew something was wrong.

“Daddy,” she barely managed to say, “I’m scared.”

“What’s wrong,” I asked.

She explained that she was on the interstate trying to get home and had driven headlong into a terrible blizzard. It was very dark, and the snow was coming down so hard that the lines on the highway were obliterated, as were the marker posts on the side of the road. She was driving blind and terrified.

“I’m scared,” she repeated, amidst her sobs. “What do I do?”

I have been in that situation many times and I understood her fear. My heart and soul went out to her. I would have come and got her in a moment if I hadn’t been 200 miles away.

“Okay,” I said, “This is what you do,” and then I explained all the tricks I have ever learned as a professional driver on how to drive and stay alive in a blizzard; how to stay on a road you can’t see. Even as I was explaining this to her, a large truck came out of nowhere obscuring in an instant what remaining vision Hannah had. She was so scared at that moment, she cried out in terror.

As we talked, she became calmer. Though she was still crying and still scared, she felt she could make it. We closed the call and I prayed for her.

She made it home.

My dear Hannah reminded me of a powerful lesson. Don’t forget when you are in trouble and things are out of control that there is someone always there and always listening—who can see you and help you, and knows what you need. All you have to do is cry out,

“Father, I’m scared. Help me.”