The Little Girl Who Thought She Was in Trouble
I lost my jury summons and accidentally uncovered a much older fear.
A few days ago, I received a jury summons in the mail.
No big deal, right?
Except today was the day I was supposed to report, and when I stumbled into the kitchen before sunrise to check whether the hearing had been canceled, I couldn’t find the summons anywhere.
Not on the counter. Not in the stack of papers by the refrigerator. Not in my purse. Not in the file pile where I swore I had tucked it for safekeeping.
As I tore through every possible hiding place, I could feel my adrenaline rising.
The summons had only been in my possession for a few days, but suddenly it had vanished into thin air. And my brain immediately jumped to the worst-case scenario.
What had the postcard said again?
Something about fines? Court hearings? Maybe even jail?
I couldn’t remember the exact wording, but I was quite certain it wasn’t good.
By this point, I was frantically searching drawers and shuffling papers with the urgency of someone trying to prevent a national emergency. Finally, I burst into the bedroom where my husband was still resting.
“I’m panicking,” I announced. “I can’t find my jury summons anywhere.”
Jeremy looked at me with the wide-eyed expression of a man who was simultaneously trying to wake up and figure out why his wife was operating at DEFCON 1 before sunrise.
Before he could respond, I rushed back to continue my search.
Why Do I Always Assume Something Bad Is Going to Happen?
A few minutes later, my cell phone rang.
It was Jeremy.
“Hey,” he said calmly. “The hearing’s been canceled.”
I stopped searching.
“How do you know?”
“I Googled ‘Wise County jury summons’ and found the phone number.”
I stared at the floor.
“I hadn’t thought of that yet.”
A few minutes later, I crawled back into bed beside him to enjoy a few more minutes of cuddling before the workday started.
He wrapped an arm around me and grinned.
“I love you, my hyper girl.”
I swatted him.
“Hey, I was scared. You can’t just not show up for jury duty. And I couldn’t find the postcard. I NEVER lose stuff.”
He laughed.
Then he asked a question I haven’t stopped thinking about all day.
“What did you think was going to happen?”
I answered without really thinking.
“Something bad.”
Then I paused.
“I mean, I typically think something bad is about to happen. Like I’m always about to get in trouble.”
I laughed when I said it. But the truth landed heavily between us.
Because it was true.
Deeply true.
Painfully true.
And maybe that’s why I’ve been sitting with this little episode all day.
On the surface, it’s funny. A missing jury summons. A husband with enough common sense to use Google. A wife spiraling before sunrise.
But underneath it all, I realized something.
How Shame Shapes Our Fear of Making Mistakes
I’m 45 years old.
I’m a wife, a mom, a chaplain, and a writer. I manage a home, a family, deadlines, responsibilities, relationships, and a hundred moving parts every single week.
Objectively speaking, I’m a capable adult.
And yet, when I couldn’t find that postcard, some deeply buried part of me immediately assumed catastrophe was around the corner.
Someone was going to be angry.
Someone was going to punish me.
Someone was going to discover I’d messed up.
Somewhere beneath the woman I’ve become lives a little girl who still thinks she’s in trouble.
The older I get, the more I realize that shame has a way of disguising itself.
Sometimes it doesn’t sound like self-hatred.
Sometimes it sounds like anxiety.
Sometimes it sounds like perfectionism.
Sometimes it sounds like over-preparing, over-explaining, or overreacting.
And sometimes it sounds like a grown woman tearing apart her kitchen because she misplaced a postcard.
Shame doesn’t merely convince us that we’ve made mistakes.
It convinces us that mistakes are dangerous.
It teaches us that mistakes expose us. That mistakes reveal something defective about who we are.
When Anxiety Is Really Fear of Getting in Trouble
If you’ve spent years in critical environments, legalistic environments, unpredictable environments, or simply environments where love felt conditional, those messages can become deeply rooted.
You begin to expect consequences.
You begin to anticipate punishment.
You begin to believe that peace is fragile and disaster is always one misstep away.
Even when there is no evidence that’s true.
The reality is that losing a jury summons is not a character flaw. It’s not a moral failure. It’s not proof that I’m irresponsible. It’s certainly not grounds for a prison sentence.
It’s just a misplaced piece of paper.
But shame has a way of turning events into identities.
A healthy voice says: “I lost the postcard.”
Shame whispers: “What kind of person loses something this important?”
And once shame enters the conversation, fear is never far behind.
Learning to Unbelieve Shame-Based Stories
As I’ve reflected on all of this today, I’ve found myself asking some difficult questions.
Where did I learn that mistakes are emergencies?
Where did I learn that being imperfect means being unsafe?
Where did I learn that I am always one step away from getting in trouble?
And perhaps most importantly:
How do I begin to unbelieve those stories?
Because that’s what healing often feels like.
Not learning something new.
Unlearning something old.
You’re Not in Trouble
Maybe that’s what God has been teaching me all along.
Not just through this missing jury summons, but through years of healing from shame-shaped narratives.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that grace is not merely God’s response to our failures. Grace is also God’s invitation to stop living as though failure is always lurking around the corner—and that if it finds us, it’s the end of us.
Maybe that’s why Jesus so often led with peace.
Because fearful people don’t need more pressure. They need reassurance.
And maybe that’s what healing looks like:
Not becoming fearless or perfect. Not never losing important paperwork again.
But gently taking that frightened little girl by the hand and reminding her of what’s true: You’re not in trouble. You never were.
And you don’t have to live as though catastrophe is waiting for you anymore.
If you’re learning to trade shame-shaped narratives for grace-shaped faith and wholehearted living, I’d love to have you join me here each week.
Veritas et Gratia,
Kristy 💐