Saturday, August 06, 2011

Small Victories

Joshua and I were just about to fall asleep the other night when we woke up to Daniel coughing really hard. He just couldn't seem to stop coughing, so I went in there, picked him up and offered him water. As the coughing went on and I could start to hear him wheezing I could feel the vice-like grip of fear squeezing my heart. Daniel stopped coughing and we put him to bed but I could still hear the wheezing. I decided to sleep on the guest bed in Daniel's room so I could keep an eye on him...his breathing wasn't getting worse but it wasn't getting better either. There are a lot of awful things to listen to in this world and one of the worst I think is listening to someone struggle to breath...and it's 100x worse when it's your child. So while I am thinking of what I can do to help him that fear just begins to grow. "What if he gets worse?" "Do I know what to do to help him?" "What if we have to go to the ER?" "What if the ER is really full and we have to wait a long time, will he stop breathing?" "What if Anna gets sick?" "What if Anna or Daniel die?" Yes, that really is how my mind works.

The small victory is that even though I did ask myself all those questions, I realized I was being fearful and worrying and knew that I needed to pray and ask the Lord to take all that fear. Daniel has been memorizing verses and one of them is Psalm 56:3, "When I am afraid, I will trust in You [God]." That verse helped me so much that night. I recognized that I needed to do what I could to keep helping Daniel, even take him to the ER if needed. But ultimately I could trust God for everything involved in this situation. As I put my trust in God that hold the fear had on my heart slipped away. God is kind because I can't trust Him without Him giving me the ability to trust Him. So it's small but encouraging to me!

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