No More Fear

June '09 - Andrew pushes us in a beach swing on HoneyMoon Island

It was my birthday and it was a GOOD day!

The night before I took Andrew to our family doctor to find out why he had lost use of his left hand, I was drawn to this passage in Isaiah: "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You" Isaiah 26:3.

Upon examination, medical staff began scrambling to get Andrew an MRI as quickly as possible. Calls were made to several places and finally we got a spot. Andrew didn't make it to the finish of the first MRI. I did not know he could have been medicated and so I sat next to him as he lay confined on the table crying. I kept my hand on his leg and tried to will and pray peace into him at the same time.

I think I must have quoted Isaiah 26:3 a million times. Over and over again. But Andrew began to move around too much and the MRI could not be completed. They moved the table out of the tube and he begged me not to let them put him back in. This mother's heart was breaking. The technician told me if it were his child he would make him go back in. But it wasn't his child, was it?
I asked them to send whatever they had gotten to our doctor and maybe it would be enough to show there was NOT a mass on Andrew's brain.

A few hours later, I got the phone call that FOREVER changed our lives. When I was told the MRI showed a large mass on the right side of Andrew's brain, I asked twice, "Are you sure?" "Are you sure?" My husband looked at me asking, "What?" "What?"
"I don't think I can take this" I answered.

But here we are almost two weeks after that first MRI, an ER visit when Andrew began complaining of his left leg feeling heavy, two more MRI's under sedation, a cat scan, an EEG, a drug induced 24 hours of horrific hallucinations (decadron - the devil drug) , two very somber visits with an oncologist, and Friday's consultation with the doctors who administer radiation.

We have signed papers for medical treatment that make you shake and groan when reading the possible complications that could result.

But we have also committed our son to the Father and, I suspect, we will have to do this over and again. When Andrew was just a few weeks old, my father who is a pastor, dedicated Andrew to God in our home...the only home Andrew has ever lived in. We could stand in the same spot in our living room right now where we gathered with family and friends for the dedication service. He is the only one of our three who was not dedicated at church.

When Andrew was about a year old, the old enemy of my life - fear, had escalated to the level of torment. I had struggled with fear as a young girl and it seemed that the older I got the greater the fear grew. Truly, it was a "spirit of fear." The fear grew exponentially while I was pregnant with our daughter, who is now 19.
I could not relax if my children were not under MY care. Even when they were with my husband on an errand, I was anxious until they returned. I never shared the overwhelming sense of forboding and anxiety I had with anyone. My husband traveled frequently for many years and I was fine in the day time.
But night always fell. And fear always dominated. I would keep my eyes open as long as I could, watching shadows and listening for sounds in the night.
I never told anyone, believing that even forming the audible words would intensify the torment.
But the day came when I knew I could not go on any longer living in the day and terrified of the night.
I'll share my story of deliverance from the "spirit of fear." Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. But I WILL share it. And God WILL BE GLORIFIED.

Thank you, sisters, for your sweet emails, comments, words of encouragement and intercession.
NO FEAR.