Anxiety is an equal opportunity villain.
I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who hasn’t experienced fear or anxiety at some point. We might be more prone to it depending on active imaginations (me!) or always jumping to worse case scenarios (me!) or being a pessimist (not me!). There is something in our human, fallen minds that lands on fear when uncertain or frightening things happen.
I didn’t consider myself a fearful person in my younger years. Maybe I naively always thought that difficult things happened to other people, not me. But over the course of a few years, I had several times when I was gripped with a sudden anxiety that was difficult to shake. One of these times was when my daughter was born.
When I went to the hospital to have my daughter, I was so excited. I was two weeks overdue and those weeks seemed like a lifetime. Every appointment those last few weeks, I had to have a stress test which meant I sat in a comfortable chair for 30 minutes while a machine took my vitals. I was declared stress free every time.
My labor was long and slow. Even after induction, my water didn’t break on its own and the doctor had to do it. And when she did, a problem was discovered. My baby had already had a bowel movement in the womb and there was a high likelihood she had swallowed fluid and developed an infection. The doctor warned that when she was born, her lungs would need to be suctioned and cleared before they would attempt to get her breathing.
With that on our minds, we continued to wait for labor to progress. When our baby came hours later, it was a rush of activity. As soon as she was born, she was put on a cart and suctioned again and again. I couldn’t see anything happening, but I also couldn’t hear a baby crying. Time seemed to stretch until finally, we heard a little slap on skin and a baby’s wail.
She was cleaned up and placed in my arms for the first time but not for long. In less than an hour, the nurses needed to get her to the NICU and run tests for infection and start antibiotics. Watching my daughter being wheeled away was not how I had pictured our first hours as a family. I slept on and off and was finally put in a wheelchair to visit our baby and move to a new room.
For the rest of the week, every day was a new anxiety. The baby wouldn’t nurse and would only drink half the bottle of milk I pumped. We were told she would need to stay in the NICU for at least five days of antibiotic, but I could only stay in my hospital room for 48 hours. We could visit and hold our daughter except for a few hours each day when the nurse schedule rotated. Every doctor round brought some encouraging news coupled with discouraging news. They needed her to eat more at each feeding and gain more weight before releasing her. A certain number of wet diapers a day. A certain heart rate and oxygen number and blood test.
I would look at the other babies in our NICU room and feel grateful, knowing many of them had more serious issues that required them to stay longer. But seeing my baby in an incubator, needing a nurse to help me lift her out with all the wires and tubes connected to her, not knowing when she would get to come home. I would sit and rock her and sing Jesus Loves Me until my husband came. Then I would head home to shower, change clothes, eat, and head back to the hospital to catch the doctor on his rounds and hear a test update. I would pump and deliver small bottles of milk for the nurses to try and feed her.
Those five days were life changing. I realized in a way I hadn’t before the fragility of life and how little control we truly have over life’s circumstances. Until my water broke, we had no idea our week would be spent driving back and forth from the hospital, sleeping when we could, cheering for every milliliter of milk our daughter would drink. Finally bringing her home was exhausting relief that we had made it through. God had provided the strength, stamina, and wisdom we needed.
Most people I know like to have a feeling of control or knowledge of a situation. When we are afraid of outcomes that scare us, we start focusing on the problem instead of on God.
Anxiety can be paralyzing, taking over our physical and mental capabilities. But again and again, we find comforting words in the Bible, meant to encourage and give us rest.
Psalm 23 is a beautiful example. It shows the range of depth our lives can have, from the joy and comfort of peaceful moments to the fear and dark times of shadows. While familiar to many, this Psalm isn’t one to be hastily quoted; it deserves consideration and consistent remembering, especially when we are feeling the weight of anxiety pressing in.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
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