The Scary Stuff

I could tell I scared him. I knew what I said was going to. I wasn't quite sure how to start, but I knew the time had come to talk about strangers.

During the past few weeks, an unknown man has been spotted sitting in his vehicle in parking lots at some local schools. It’s happened enough that people started noticing and then telling one another about it. Some schools sent notes home to parents. A news report revealed this man was questioned by police. While my child isn't in school, I know that doesn't mean he is exempt from dangers like this.

When I first read the e-mail a co-worker sent about this, I got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Then she sent another e-mail a few days ago. Being questioned by the police didn’t scare him away as I, and I’m sure many others, hoped. It appears he was spotted again after that in a different vehicle in a local neighborhood.

As in many instances when things like this happen, it can sometimes be hard to separate fact from rumor. I heard from someone it might be more of a domestic situation. Then I heard that this had been happening off and on for about two years. I also heard that one of the local preschool heads had known about it for a while, but didn't report things to parents until someone posted something about it on Facebook.

While I don't know if any of those things are true, one thing I do know is this man is likely up to no good.

It scares me to type this. I can only imagine what my son was feeling hearing this through the mind of a four-year-old. It made me feel like the bad person delivering this message.

He understood what I was saying. He got his quiet, almost angry expression and wouldn’t talk for a few minutes.

Was it too much for four? Should I have said it in a different way? If not now, then when is the right time to talk about strangers and child molesters and the evil that exists in this world?

I didn’t want to have the conversation. I didn’t want to scare him. I didn’t want him to lose that innocence of thinking bad people exist only in the movies or scary stories.

Later that day, we came across this verse in Proverbs:

“Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”

It was a much needed reminder to me of our Redeemer’s protection. I’ve prayed aloud with my son several times since then asking God to be his and his sister’s shield throughout their lives. We also prayed for God to act as a shield of protection for all the children in our town.

I’m trying not to harp on or re-visit that conversation. I want him to know that when he is scared, like we all are at times, that we have the best protector in our Lord above. He is the one that offers us refuge from the fears and realities of this world, especially, in the scariest of times.