To the mother facing fear

My son was about 2 months old when I felt the soft and gentle prompting of the Holy Spirit show me that my fear and anxiety around his health and well-being was getting out of hand. At the time I didn’t have the capacity to address this issue the Lord was bringing to light, knee deep in sleep depravation, and trying to find a routine that worked seemed all consuming and I had no ability to focus on anything else except survive. As the days rolled into months I found myself fretting over everything, googling every new little nuance he did, every new spot/rash or change in behaviour was typed into trusty google to diagnose whether it was normal or not. Most of all I worried constantly over his breathing and feared he might die in his sleep, In the initial weeks of being home I couldn’t leave him for more than a few minutes at a time without going in to check he was alive and okay. I should mention that this constant checking was a byproduct of our experience in Hospital during Benji’s first few weeks of life. He had experienced Transient Tachypnea of the Newborn (TTN) in the days following his birth and then subsequently also developed sepsis (a blood infection) a week after being at home…needless to say this experience was rather traumatic- those of you who have had a baby in the NICU/SCBU and/or suffering a potentially fatal illness at just days old leaves wounds that last long after your little one has healed. Benji did indeed survive and is a strong and healthy (somewhat rambunctious) 16 month old. Going back to the wounds though, this experience left me with constant worry and anxiety and the more I acted in fear the more it consumed me, I was trapped in a cycle that was difficult to get out from- it became a pattern in my life that left me not living one of faith.