Storm

       The volume deafens. I make futile attempts to cover my head, soaking my hems and freezing my ankles in the lake country rising across the basketball court. The drop are so heavy I begin choking; I hold my breath. Closer, closer--finally! I dash under the porch's cover. Rain sweeps over the playground in waves. We are in for a good storm.
       The autumn of my first year my heart's atmosphere was thick as the anxious air this morning. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. The mantra braced me around the mountain's wicked curves, through the blurring weeks of too many new names, against the throbbing of no Naomi to hold, no mama's smile to hold me. No house was ready for me; no classroom had been cleared for me; no one knew me. I'll be fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. 
       And I could be fine through the adding of another class for which I had one week to prepare, through the living with a stranger for a month before I had any home, through daily failure crushing every support wall upholding any sense of "I belong." I have to be fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.
        Christmas Eve, and I had begun to think I was at home here. We listened to our children sing and enveloped the tree in too many gifts and ate late-night cookies, and I was only checking my email before shutting the light to hasten Christmas morning.
       High school. The English classes. All of them.
             In two weeks.
        And in that moment--just that moment--I was sure God knew what He was doing, sure of His calling, sure I'd be okay. I trusted Him and flew in unconscious surrender across the hours to the glories of a Christmas morning.
       Sunday night hall time was one of my favorites. Ten o'clock bed for all, a few mostly-calm hours with my girls before the school week. But the noise that January night just before second semester thundered, deafening.
            You can't. You can't. You're not ready; you can't. You're selfish to take the place of such an experienced teacher, a fool to believe all will be all right. Soon all will see your incompetence and stop loving you, start tolerating you, consider you that staff member someone must eventually muster up the courage to kick out. You can't. 
       And I could have told myself my thoughts lied, could have spoken truth. But deceiving yourself into believing you're okay is a fine art I've mastered, and bracing yourself for rejection is exhausting. I was too conditioned in believing my own lies, too tired to fight.
      The only way I can describe anxiety attacks is to say they feel like someone is holding you under water, waiting for you to drown. An in my case, the thoughts holding me smirked, spewing sarcasm as I kicked and fought and tried to scream. Aww, poor thing. You actually thought you'd make it in the real world. But you're still the thirteen-year-old screaming nonsense and wishing to die. But some days--some days--I would come up to breathe; some days I would find the storm's eye. I had four days of a mind's clear sky once. And each time the storm broke I'd break surface and breathe and believe I would be fine. But when you trust only yourself, you must lean on your own understanding. You must direct your own path.
                           And when you direct your own path, you get lost.
      "Nice knowing you, Ma'm. Thanks for getting me kicked out."
      He leaned back, self-satisfied in how effectively he had hurt me, had touched my greatest fear. How do you dare to love when loving them might mean losing them too? Of course getting expelled would be his own fault, if it ever happened. Of course I wasn't responsible for his sin. Of course.
      But the thought insistent hissed of not enough and your fault and could have done more.
      Because I wanted a scrap of pride to hold onto, to say that my 6 a.m. morning on the hall and fight breakings and classroom sweepings meant I was some kind of superhero. I wanted to believe the well-intentioned guests who intimated that we were these children's saviors.
        Oh God, forgive me to have ever thought I must be someone's savior.
        And the power of words like these--words from angry students, words from the death inside of me--pushed up great waves and pulled me under again. I cried in front of those poor ninth graders at least four or five times in one semester. I often felt I couldn't breathe. When you don't breathe, your body starts to burn from oxygen deprivation. I remember once staring longingly at the tile floor because it looked so cool and all I wanted to do was lie, head and heart-down, to make the burning stop.
      Yet over and over and over the Father came, called, reached His hand to me. Our community has a tradition during Sunday night prayer times of publicly honoring people by telling the story of how he or she has been a blessing and praying for that person. Every time I went up to speak I had so many more stories than I could say, so many more people to praise. So many here were the Lord's mouth and hands and heart, telling their own stories and washing my dishes and letting me cry again. People who were to me safe places to hide when the sky broke over me.
       I don't remember when I stopped drowning. I fight daily the whisper that I am only feeling the summer's low tide. But I remember that when the storm was worst I found this place just like the hearts of my friends, but ready at every moment--a place so small, just the size of me--inside Love Himself. And when I chose to let Him lift me there, when I stayed in that place, I was anchored safe, covered well, and free to sleep.
      The storm still pours, and I slip late into the dining hall. Storms heighten every sense: the warmth of a building, the fragrance of food, the peace. I love storms because they remind me how safe I am inside.
    The school year will come and some days the sky will break, no telling for how long. And should I "become more confident," as so many well-meaning people encourage me--should I trust myself again--I will go under. But daily, when I choose to be still, I see Him invite me again up into His love.
                          I will be safe inside.