Being a mom is difficult on the best days, let alone the worst days. We spend all our time making sure our kids are provided for, cared for, and loved. We protect. We shelter. Nurture. And pray that nothing ever happens to them.

But life does happen. And it’s not always when we’re there to protect them. Whether on purpose or accidental, kids can do some scary stuff.

How’s a mom to respond? Hopefully with calm words and patience. But in the fray of the moment, it can be tough!

I pray you find some encouragement in knowing you’re not alone. I give you:

The 4 Scariest Things My Kids Have Ever Done

Zach’s Near-Death Experience

It was early in my marriage to Zach’s father and had been a quiet day. I’d loaded him and Ezra into our minivan and headed to the laundromat, which was located between the grocery store (same building in a plaza) and the river that runs through our small hometown. As I pulled up alongside the laundromat, I gave Zach instruction to stay in the car. I was going to run the few baskets of laundry into the building, then we would park and all go in.

I removed the keys from the ignition and pocketed them, grabbed the first basket, and headed up the few steps and inside the laundromat. I came back for the second, and Zach was still in his seat. When I came back for the third, only moments later, he was missing. I quickly turned around to see where he may have wandered off to and spotted him in a parking spot between two vehicles, at the guard rail on the riverbank. He’d decided to throw some rocks while he waited what probably seemed a lifetime to a child.

This would seem like a harmless situation, small town and all, except…

As I watched in horror, some drunk idiot pulled his beat-up pickup truck into the parking lot too quickly and swung it into the spot where my stepson stood.

Zach’s face went sheet-white, as I’m sure my own did. His jaw dropped and eyes widened. Every breath in my being came to a halt as the truck did, and I prayed my stepson stood unharmed on the other side of it.

Thank God, he was without a scratch. I was furious. He’d willfully disobeyed my instruction to stay put in the car, and he’d almost lost his life for it. How would I possibly tell my husband or his mother that he’d been hit and killed by a drunk driver on my watch? Every vein was sticking out of my forehead when I gathered him and set him in his seat. I parked my minivan and took Ezra in with us.

Lessons Learned:

1. Don’t rely on an eight-year-old to be obedient. Take them into and from the laundromat with you, even if what you’re doing takes five minutes or fewer.

Ezra’s River Walk

When Ezra was five, I was teaching a Creative Memories scrapbooking class in a neighboring town when my husband called me in extreme duress. “You have to come home! Now! I can’t find him! He’s missing!”

Cue the heart to stop beating. Again. Can’t breathe. Want to yell, “What do you mean he’s missing?!” Instead, deep breath. Calm nerves. Think before I speak. “I’m on my way.”

It’s a thirty-minute drive between where I was and home. We lived on Main Street in the same small town I mentioned in Zach’s story. Traffic wasn’t massive, but it was enough to make a parent of small children worry. (And let’s not forget about the river.) All sorts of scenarios ran through my head on that drive. So did a lot of wanting to throttle my husband for losing our son in our own home.

When I arrived, Ezra wasn’t yet recovered. It wasn’t until fifteen minutes later we found him.

Thankfully, someone who worked at the school with my mom had seen him wandering by himself up the road toward the bridge across from the school. He’d decided he wanted to take a walk and throw rocks into the river while his dad took a nap on the couch. (What is it with boys wanting to throw rocks in the river?)

We found them at the “Crunchy Store” as our son called it. The Country Store is a convenience store/gas station next to the school. The local police officer was present, and he made Ezra promise he’d never leave home without Mom and Dad again. My husband got a stern look from him as well before we returned home.

Lessons Learned:

1. Always lock the door when your toddler is loose in the house.
2. Wait until another parent is home or an older sibling is willing to watch the toddler before you take a nap.

Caleb’s Fall

On a cloudy Sunday afternoon, we decided to get Chinese food for lunch after church. My nieces were over, and the kids had gone out back to play while I walked to the restaurant up the street and their father lounged on the couch.

Upon my return, I set the food on the table when my husband came running into the living room with our four-year-old son draped across his arms and laid him on the couch. Three kids followed but stayed back. Caleb’s eyes weren’t focusing, and he kept seizing up, wavering between being conscious and not.

Caleb and his cousins and siblings had been on the back stoop, which had a seven or eight-foot drop from the top platform to the ground below. I always made sure they were playing on the ground, not allowing them to remain on the stoop. But because I wasn’t there, they had no such direction and had stopped there to check out something my niece had brought over with her. Caleb had stepped backward or lost his balance and fallen the nearly-a-story drop.

We took him out to the minivan, and my husband strapped him in while I got into the driver’s seat. I rushed him to the hospital.

For the next couple of hours, the ER staff monitored him and made arrangements for an ambulance transport to another larger hospital. He wouldn’t stay still long enough for our hospital to run a scan, and they didn’t want to give him anything, not knowing what was going on internally.

I rode in the back of the ambulance with him while Victor dropped our other children off with family and followed. The entire trip to Albany, my son was in and out of consciousness. Seizing. Eyes unfocused. Crying out in pain. The same as he’d been in the ER.

My heart broke at the sight and sound of my son. I did the only thing I knew to do. I prayed over my baby all the way. And cried. And prayed.

Upon arrival at the hospital, I was stopped by nursing staff who needed me to fill out paperwork while they whisked my child off to a room. Everything in me wanted to scream that I wasn’t leaving him. But I kept my cool and quickly filed the paperwork for them. It took probably five minutes of my time. Then they led me to the room they’d taken him to.

FYI: Miracles do happen.

Caleb was bright-eyed and sitting straight up, talking up a storm with the nurses. He’s very expressive when he speaks, and he uses his hands a lot. He was full-on conversing with the staff. As if nothing had ever happened.

And his scan came back clear. He had a concussion. That was the extent of his injuries.

Ezra’s Suicide Attempt

This situation is still raw, because it happened in November of 2018, right after Thanksgiving. My son and his father had an argument, and Ezra had enough. He left the house on foot, and we expected he’d gone to Barnes and Noble or Guitar Center to cool off, as he usually did. Little did we know…

I was driving home from dropping another child off at work when I got a call from the hospital asking if I knew why my son was in the ER.

This time, panic struck my heart and wouldn’t let go. I answered calmly the first time. “No. Why is my son in the hospital? What happened to him?” When the hospital representative asked me the same question twice more, I’d had enough. And so had the dams in my eyes, because the tears crashed through. “Why is my son at your hospital? What happened to him?”

When the story finally came out, he had only gotten two roads from home (about two blocks) when he decided he could go no farther. He sat down in the middle of the road and refused to budge for oncoming traffic. Thankfully, he was still on a side road and not the main one where all the store traffic is. The road he sat on is busy, but it isn’t the faster traffic of the main road.

People had tried to coax him out of the road, and someone stopped to talk with him and contacted the police when he wouldn’t move. The police officer got him to move, because he wasn’t going to disobey an officer of the law. But he only got as far as the curb before he sat again. At which point, an ambulance was called.

Ezra spent the night on suicide watch in a psych ward at the hospital. He talked with a few of the other patients who were there with him, and I think it gave him a little better perspective on life.

But it was the worst night of my life, knowing that my son hated his life so much he’d attempt to take it. I praise God knowing that He protected him and kept him from harm’s way on that road.

And although he still battles feeling down or unsure of himself and his worth, Ezra is doing much better today.

And the stern, rude nurse on the other end of the phone call I received that day is lucky she wasn’t in front of me. I’m not so sure I would have kept my cool and not hauled off and hit her.

FYI: If your child is on suicide watch in the ER, they won’t let you come see him. At least, not if he’s 18 or older.

This was probably one of the hardest for me to deal with. When a child feels worthless and unlovable, it’s difficult to understand why when you’ve done all you can do to pour love and worth into them.

Sure, there are circumstances that have contributed to his depression and low self-esteem. And I recognized all of them. I counseled him and encouraged him and told him it wasn’t his fault and it shouldn’t define him.

It breaks your heart to know your child is hurting and that as much as you want to save them from the pain and fix them and make them whole, you can’t. You can only pray they come to hear and know God’s voice and love in their lives. And even then, they may not feel it’s enough.

I am thankful my children have survived their experiences. I know many parents who have lost children in various ways. My heart goes out to all of you who have. As moms, we must continue forward in this life, continually praying for our children and their hearts and their protection. It’s not easy. It’s not pain-free. But God is good, despite the things we encounter in this imperfect world. We must lean on Him and His strength to see us through.

Have you ever experienced something heart-stopping with your child? How have you survived the situation? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!