Reflective Ramblings

Strange how fear rears its ugly head when you least suspect it!

I was working in the kitchen when I heard a sound that absolutely sent a chill down my spine. A sinking feeling gripped me in the pit of my stomach. A wave of panic washed over me.

The familiar alarm from Evie's pulse-ox (heart/lung) monitor sent me spiraling.

It took all of three seconds to identify my irrationality realize that Isabelle's curious fingers had turned on the monitor and it automatically alarms when its not hooked up to a baby and picking up a pulse. For months now, that monitor has been stored in my closet.....just in case. But for the first year and a half of her life, it was Evie's constant companion.

How many sleepless nights did we spend watching the lines dance up and down on that monitor only to fall asleep and be woken moments later by that alarm? For hours we'd stand over her crib with blow-by oxygen trying to alleviate her struggle to breathe. There were dozen of drives to the ER watching her oxygen numbers plummeting. Oh the tears as they strapped her to a board so they could x-ray her lungs.....again.

It was a chapter of our lives I thought would never get easier. For such a long time we woke her up round-the-clock for medication and breathing treatments. Our bedroom was cluttered with monitors, stationary oxygen and a nebulizer. We couldn't let her cry for fear of the strain it would put on her heart. Some days, our medicine cabinet had more variety in content than our pantry. Our precious pediatrician gave me her home, cell, pager, office and husbands number. And I called all of them....often!

God graciously dealt with my fears. The valid ones. The irrational ones. The constant attacks of the Enemy to steal our joy. The plaguing thought that every memory could be the last. The haunting reality that we could loose her. My fear was acute. Well founded. But not the place the Lord wanted me to dwell.

Sometimes situations get easier so slowly, that you don't even realize the magnitude of how far you've come until you stop and look back. There wasn't a moment we turned a corner. It was gradual. There was not a day that we stopped treating her like a fine piece of fragile china. But I look at a different little girl today.

I never thought we'd tickle her, that her daddy would throw her in the air, that her brother would wrestle with her. I couldnt imagine her bouncing down the stairs on her tushie by herself. She's fearless in water and swims like a fish. Seeing her whirling and twirling to music is beyond the "normal" that I thought would be hers.

Fear. It still rears its ugly head some days. Its still something He's weeding out of my heart. I have much to learn still, but how grateful I am that........

"He has delivered me from all fear

He has set my feet upon a rock!

He has made me glad

And Ill say of the Lord

You are my Shield

My Strengh

My Fortress, Deliver

My Shelter, Stong Tower,

My very present Help in time of need!"