“I am going to die.”
That’s what I kept telling myself on repeat as I talked to the OBGYN nurse over the phone. I tried to catch my breath but the tightness in my chest made it difficult to breathe.
“Don’t try to come here,” she said. “Just go straight to the E.R. Tell them you just had a c-section.”
All my symptoms pointed to a pulmonary embolism, which could be fatal. I sat there in shock, rocking my newborn while I fed him and wondering what to do. Take him with me? Finish feeding him?
My mother-in-law and husband were the only source of calm in the room. I looked at them both, searching for answers to questions I didn’t feel capable of asking.
“Finish feeding the baby and we will take him. I will send Larry out for formula,” my mother-in-law said. The evenness in her voice steadied me for a moment. She didn’t seem worried. Perhaps things were going to be okay.
When I look back this moment when my firstborn was just days old, I see a person who was wrecked by fear. It was one of the scariest times of my life. All I could tell myself was to keep breathing in and out, from one second to the next.
I didn’t have a pulmonary embolism, but anxiety and side efforts from some medication I was taking contributed to my symptoms. Within a couple of days, the chest pains and shortness of breath passed, but the lessons I learned after those few hours in the E.R. would play out for years.
Sometimes God allows us to face our greatest fears so we see that there is no fear greater than His love.
If you’d love to learn more about how to transform your paralyzing fear into bold faith, check out our online course for FREE today (for a limited time only, $35 value), taught by Scriptural expert Susan Evans.
Most of us would be afraid if someone told us we could be about to die. It’s the second most common phobia, with the first being public speaking. But what about those of us who live life scared, all the time? Scared of what people will think, scared to take that step of faith into the unknown, or scared to reach out to someone who may reject us?
For a large chapter of my life, this was my every day. I was terrified to truly live because I thought if I did, I would mess things up. What would I mess up? Anything that mattered. Relationships, career, kids, you name it. God’s grace was a gift I couldn’t fathom or recognize.
In the year following my experience at the E.R., God captured my heart in a way I can’t explain. A latticework of events that included a friend reaching out, a book I read at the right time, and many others all combined to reach my tired soul. Day by day, I realized: God’s love will drown my fear, if I let it.
