We recently went through a traumatic incident, when our daughter choked while eating her lunch at school. A piece of bread had slipped over of her airway while swallowing, and she required the Heimlich maneuver to remove it and allow her to breath. It was a very scary moment for everyone involved, and we are beyond grateful for the alert and fast acting staff who intervened to save our daughter’s life.
When I first got the call from the school, and they told me the news, I was in shock. They told me they had done multiple abdominal thrusts in order to clear her airway. I quickly went from shock to medical emergency mode with all my years of training from working in the healthcare field, and also from being Abbey’s mom. I asked a series of important medical questions, then quickly hung up the phone to call Eric. He got home fast, and we drove together to Abbey’s school to take her to the urgent care for a checkup. After some time waiting, several x-rays, and a consult with the doctor, the results showed no fractured ribs and no food particles or fluid stuck in her lungs. Praise God!
When it was all over, we helped Abbey into the backseat of the car. Then we slipped into the front seat and turned to look at each other. We both had a dazed and worn expression on our faces as an audible exhale of relief came out of our mouths. I had still been in shock up until that very moment when the emergency call to action ended and the reality of what had happened finally set into my mind and heart.
Wide-eyed I whispered to Eric, “She could’ve died!”
Just as in shock over this reality as I was, my husband responded, “I know!”
For the rest of the week, I found myself too restless to sleep and hypervigilant about everything having to do with my daughter’s care. I was full of fear from morning to night, and even when I finally fell asleep, I was haunted in my dreams. Intrusive thoughts raced around my mind and tortured me with fear.
“How can we keep this from happening again?”
“If this does happen again, our caregivers are CPR certified, but do they all actually know and remember how to do things correctly?”
“What if it hadn’t worked and she had died?”
What we Fear:
Fear is an ugly beast of a thing. We fear what we do not know and what we cannot understand. Most of all we fear what we cannot control. However, in life, especially as a parent of a child with special needs, there is so much that we cannot control. In fact, control is ultimately an illusion in this life. We cannot control the weather, the stock market, the way that other’s treat us, or our child’s future.
Why we Fear:
All of this can leave us, like me, scrambling for the sense of control we seek. At the root of fear is often the need to control the situation and to feel secure, so we find ourselves becoming hypervigilant in order to create that sense of control and security. We want to know that we and those we that love will be safe, healthy, happy, and successful in this life. And when we feel that these things are being threatened, our God given survival response of fight, flight, or freeze naturally kicks in. At least at first that is.
When we Fear:
When we fear, the initial response is most often one of survival. We were designed to meet the things we perceive as threats with a primary survival response. But this response isn’t meant to be sustained. In fact, the flight or fight response cannot be sustained without the outcome of some sort of damage being done. When we are afraid, we experience an initial burst of extra energy which comes from a rush of released adrenaline. This of course can help us to meet the immediate need of having to deal with a perceived threat. However, our bodies cannot handle repeated excess amounts of adrenaline for long. And when our body’s cortisol stress response is overtaxed, it too begins to malfunction. Even our body’s own design shows us that we were not meant to live in a constant state of fear.
So, when we fear something, we cannot control or understand or predict, what are we to do? I would offer this thought. We cannot control many things in this life, but the one thing we can control is our response to the things we cannot control.
The Bible offers some beautiful guidance on this when it says,
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
– Philippians 4:6,7
When we fear the things, we cannot control our response is everything. We can either spin and spiral in fear, as I admittedly did initially, or we can give that fear and the unknowns which are causing the fear to our loving God in prayer. Speak them out loud to God. This is what brings peace, real peace in the midst of a fearful situation. God’s presence brings peace. Knowing that He sees all, and knows all, and that he has a plan for it all can and will bring us peace.
Whatever you may be experiencing today, if you find yourself overwhelmed with fear, share it with God in prayer and give it to him knowing that he will see you through whatever it is that you are facing.
“I may not know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”
– Ralph Abernathy
