Everything was peaceful on the commercial Boeing 757 flight I took from Dallas last summer – until it wasn’t. Somewhere between the verse and refrain of a song I was listening to, I felt my body lift from my chair as the plan itself dropped in the air. My jaw clenched and my heart flew to my throat in fear. 

Glancing around me in panic, I noticed that the entire plane was in shock. Across the aisle, a young college student gripped her seat with white knuckles. The man next to me ripped the earbuds from his ears to listen frantically to the message from the caption over the loudspeaker. “I’m afraid!” children were screaming outloud as the plane took another dip downward. I felt the movement itself become faster than the gravity that held me to the seat.

The captain’s voice was muffled and sounded far away. He didn’t waste words: he ordered the flight attendants back to their seats for an “unexpected situation” with the weather. A glance out the nearest window revealed a wall of dark, grey clouds. I tried to fool myself with the idea of routine turbulence and instead, entered into what felt like the scene of a thriller movie. 

Our plane glided into the storm and as it did, I felt our steady climb into the sky descend in giant jolts downward. Our altitude, posted on the screen in front of me, was steadily dropping. The engines became quiet and the clouds seemed to swallow us into an unknown darkness. Every time the plane dropped, my heart sank a bit further into my throat.

The children’s screams escalated my own fear. “I’m afraid!” Their words were repeated, both aloud and in my heart. Every time the children screamed those chilling words, my own fear became more real within my heart. I wondered, perhaps the man, the college student, the flight attendants – perhaps all of us – wanted and needed to scream those same words: “I’m afraid!”

I knew those words inside of me were not meant to be quieted: I was meant to say them. But how? And to whom? I searched my heart and found Him, my God, recalling the words I had read just a few days before, shared by St. Margaret Mary, - words that he spoke both to her and now to me: “Let me do it.”

In a time of fear, panic, and terror, these words gave me peace. “He’s got me, no matter what happens,” I thought. There’s nothing I can do, nothing the man next to me could do, and so much that only the pilot could do. It was all in His hands. And he assured me, “Let me do it.”

Suddenly, my heart protested, “I’m afraid” it said with the children around me. Instead of quieting down those words and giving myself reasons to believe I need not be afraid, I leaned into the fear and said them over and over again to God in my heart. And so, this became a litany of prayer within my heart during those awful minutes that felt like hours.

Me: “I’m afraid.” Him: “Let me do it.”

Me: “I’m afraid.” Him: “Let me do it.” So it went, on and on…

The emotions inside me rose and fell, just like the plane itself. I had panic, then comfort; fear, then confidence.

It took about 10 minutes for the plane to right itself, and resume it’s steady course home. The relief I felt when the movement stopped was cautious. There was silence around me and all passengers seemed to be asking the same question, “Is it over?”

It was over. The captain returned to the speaker and said we had weathered the worst part of the storm. He ordered everyone to remain in our seats for the duration of the flight. While it took some time for the adrenaline inside me to subside and give way to relief and gratitude, I thought about the voices of the children, “I’m afraid!” while staring out at the dark clouds that paved our way home.

I admired how small children were able to articulate their panic with words and how they helped me to see the need I had to do the same and honor my fear. Children raised in a healthy environment have the privilege of being able to react and vocally respond to stimulus of all sorts, giving voice to fears as well as doubts, pain, and joys. I notice that as we grow, the healthy management of those emotions often becomes a misinterpreted and unhealthy suppression. How often do we convince ourselves that “there’s nothing to be afraid of” when in fact, there really is!?!? This experiencing highlighted for me this truth: trusting in God doesn’t mean we aren’t supposed to fear! The fear itself matters. You matter.

I believe that God Himself tells us so. He has historically acknowledged our fear – over and over again, much like the litany I prayed on that plane – and invites us to place it on Him, trusting that He will indeed “do it.”

“Do not be afraid…” He said it on the Sea of Galilee, on the mountain of the Transfiguration, and in countless other scriptural counts. “Fear not…” He said before ascending into Heaven and promising to return. He says it every day when he sees our response to danger or the unknown. He said it to Peter, He says it to me, and He says it to you.

Let Him acknowledge your suffering, my sister. Let Him comfort your fear. Give Him the space to say “I’ve got this” whether it’s once or one million times. He’s eager to do it and even more eager to come closer to you in those moments of fear. He will do it. We must only let Him.

Jesus said to St. Margaret Mary: “Let me do it.” “His Sacred Heart,” she wrote, “will do everything if I let him.”