Dealing With Fear

I am so blessed to be a part of an amazing group of omphalocele parents on Facebook that is very active in sharing their pictures, stories, struggles and good days. Sometimes when it feels like my brain is going to explode if I think about one more "what if", I go there and see their amazing kids who are fighting bravely and surviving successfully...especially because most of these babies have it much worse than Tate does. I remind myself that God is with them, and they are doing great despite all their obstacles, and if they can do it, certainly we can! But I'd be lying if I said I actually convince myself 100%  that everything is going to be fine and I completely let go of my worry.

There are so many things that go into an omphalocele baby and their care. Like I posted about before, most are things that you never really think about until you are in this position. I worry about our house...whether or not I will ever be able to sterilize it enough for him, whether or not it's safe for us to live as far away from town as we do since ambulance response times here are not very good, and so on. I worry about whether I am good enough at infant CPR if things came to that, since there are so many feeding issues with O babies. I am so excited to meet him and have him here with us, but there can be days where fear threatens to take over.

It's funny, though, how the Lord works. As I was scrolling through my News Feed on Facebook the other day, feeling particularly overwhelmed with all the unknowns, I saw this same message repeated over and over again: "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." No less than six different people posted it, around the same time, all of them unrelated to eachother and unaware of my mental struggle that day. God has a faithful, gentle, persistent way of reminding me that my focus needs to be on this Joshua 1:9 frame of mind... Not on all the details, or the possibilities, or the obstacles, or really anything else but this: strength, courage, encouraging myself, trusting the Lord is with us every step of the way no matter what happens.