Mars Mission

I am at a loss of how to cope with the current situation. My SIL (not married, but might as well be) is one of the lucky people to be chosen from 200,000+ applicants to go onto the next round of selection for the Mars One project (the people who will actually go to Mars in 2024ish). She is one of 1058 people, with a 2% chance of being in the final 24 who will actually go to the red planet. I think this is super exciting! The rest of DH's family does not. I understand no one wants to see her go, but at this point (and I keep reminding them of this) it's a really slim chance that she will get to go.

The awful part is that the next round is based somewhat on medical profiles. All that's going against SIL is her bad eye sight. In talking with the IL's yesterday, it almost sounds as though they are wishing there was more wrong with her so that she couldn't go. Is this really selfish of them, or am I just head-in-the-clouds optimistic that everything will work out?

It breaks my heart. In all of the interviews SIL has given, she keeps saying how she doesn't have a lot of support and that she wishes more people would support this mission. The whole thing (going to Mars, setting up a community/civilization) is pretty amazing and great and ground breaking (earth shattering?)!

And here's where my head is at: I've been doing a bible study (Beth Moore) on the book of Esther. When SIL announced that she was doing this and when the IL's started freaking out, I was brought back to some of the verses in the book: Who knows if you were made queen for such a time as this? / Who knows if SIL was put on this planet for this mission? And also, one of the lessons talked about "If ___ then ___" where the first blank is the worst thing that could happen (SIL goes to Mars) and the second blank will always be God (He will take care of us). 

So how do I, a recent re-believer, tell a whole-life-Catholic woman to trust in God? To support SIL's choice, as maybe it isn't really hers to begin with? How do I tell her that it is not enough for us to trust Him that what we fear most will never happen to us (most of what we fear never does happen to us). It is not enough to have conditional faith and conditional trust. We need to trust God PERIOD. Trust Him. Not trust Him to not let it happen; TRUST HIM. So what if our worst fears come true? What if we lose someone we don't think we can live without? We may think it will kill us, but it will not, because our God is faithful.

Should that which I fear most come upon me, then my God will take care of me.