"Hello?" I asked hesitantly as I picked up the ringing telephone.

"Mom?"

My heart dropped. This was the phone call I had expected, yet dreaded, from my eighteen-year-old son, A.J.

"Hi, A.J."

"I told you I'd call to say good-bye. We leave for Kuwait in twenty minutes," he said matter-of-factly.

My eyes welled up with tears, but I swallowed the big lump in my throat and asked, "What do you want in your first care package?"

"Can you make me those peanut butter cookies I like so much?" he asked.

"You bet," I said enthusiastically, as if he were heading off to college.

"I was told I'll be over there a whole year. Write often ... okay, Mom?"

"Of course, I will. And I'll be praying very hard. I love you, A.J."

"Thanks, Mom. I love you, too. I have to go now."

I hung up the phone and sat quietly at the kitchen table.

It was really happening-it wasn't just rumors anymore. The country was about to go to war. And my son would be on the front lines.

A.J. was just a boy. My boy. What if I never saw him again?

"Do you know how much I love you, A.J." Do you have any Earthly idea what you mean to me?" I said aloud, as tears streamed down my face.

Then, knowing it would be all too easy to let myself become hysterical, I grabbed my head with both hands, closed my eyes, clenched my teeth together, and prayed for the strength to make the negative thoughts go away.

What God gave me instead was a barrage of memories.

Eighteen years go by fast. Had I thought I could protect A.J. his whole life? Like a mother hen who shields her chicks from danger by having them hide under her, I wanted to whisk my son out of harm's way.

But a mother hen knows an unprotected chick is vulnerable and easily snared. A.J. was neither. He was a United States Marine. He had completed thirteen weeks of grueling boot camp. How many people could say they'd made it through that hell?

Now he was headed to Kuwait. He was part of an elite group of young men and women who were going to fight terrorism. War hadn't been officially declared yet, but everyone knew that preparations had been made. It was only a matter of time....

I was scared. War is a terrifying word. And so I did the only thing I could do to protect both my sanity and my son. I prayed.

"Oh, God, please ... I know you've heard these same prayers over and over from thousands of mothers just like me. But it's unnatural for parents to outlive their children. You tell us that we're given only what we can handle. I couldn't handle losing A.J. Look at my life, Lord. I've tried to be strong through all the other heartaches. Please, take care of Your child and mine. Please ... please ... take care of all of them."