Who Listens When We’re Scared?

FIRST, A LITTLE BACKGROUND: I’ve been absent from the blog for a couple of months because of a health-scare. I won’t go into a ton of detail but am happy to share that, while I’m certainly not emerging from this unscathed, I am in good health and have resumed leading a pretty normal life.

That said, what follows is a cleaned-up post that I wrote while in the hospital maybe 12 hours after being admitted to the ER. As I wrote this, some tests had been run while others were still pending and the doctors had no prognosis yet to tell me if I was okay or if things were about to take a more serious turn.

As a pretty healthy guy up to now, I was surprised and frankly shaken to be in that position and – not surprisingly – I found myself turning to my faith. I wanted to share this snapshot of where I was when I wrote this, midway through my initial “health scare,” as it was testing aspects of myself in ways that I’d not experienced very often before. But in the midst of all this, I also had a simple but profound lesson happen that I hope to carry forward for the rest of my days and which I wanted to share with you.

This may be my most personal post ever. I am writing it lying in a hospital bed having some tests run while waiting for more to happen. I had an incident earlier this week that, while concerning, did not seem that serious at first. However, after two doctors appointments and an eventual diagnosis of what had occurred, I was sent to the ER for some urgent testing.

While the ultimate outcome is still not yet known, I am dealing with partial blindness in one eye that will likely last for the rest of my life, and it may be indicative of a larger, more serious problem. Whatever else, this past week will be leaving a lasting impact on me, physical and otherwise.

What I want to focus on here, however, is the emotional journey I have been on the last few days and especially the last 24 hours. I will offer up the disclaimer that there is a theme of faith that will be woven through this but I think it is important to share the perspective for any of you who may someday go down a similar path.

One of the things I find myself struggling with the most is accepting that I am no longer “invulnerable.” And yes, I have always known that, but the secret truth is that I have felt that I was one of the lucky ones with very few health challenges or issues to date. But, as of a few days ago, that is no longer true. What’s more, I’m also experiencing an undermining of my faith in myself; that I can be the person that others can always rely on and that I don’t need anyone else’s help to take care of myself. That is simply not the case any more.

I suspect that at least some of you reading these words are rolling your eyes for how obvious this is but, for me, I had self-reliance drilled into my psyche from a very young age and always felt that I needed to be able to take care of everyone around me. I understood that would end someday but I had frankly not expected to face the possibility quite so soon.

Back in college, a good friend had a stroke at the age of 20. He survived but had lasting debilitation on the entire right side of his body. He learned to adapt but I recall thinking at the time two very different thoughts – that I was thrilled he was still with us, but also that I was also glad to not be walking his path. The thought of being incapacitated in any way was – and is – unthinkable.

Last night, as I lay in the dark here in a hospital bed that I’d never expected to end up in, I started reflecting on these last few days and the uncertainty of what is still to come. And I felt scared. Thoughts of not being there for my family, my friends, my clients deeply disturbed me and, what’s worse, there was nothing I could do about it. This self-image I had built up my entire life of the guy everyone could count on was shattering. And there was no one to talk to, no one to tell me it was going to be all better and not to worry. And so I turned to the only refuge I could – prayer.

I do not know if prayer is a part of your life or what it looks like if it is. For myself, my prayers often feel like a one-way street where I talk but there’s never any clear answer. It frankly tests my belief that there is a higher power watching over us, but still I persevere (it’s called having faith for a reason).

This morning, I woke early and sat quietly in my room still thinking about all that had occurred and what is yet to come. I then prayed some more.

Eventually, an interesting thing happened.

I picked up my phone and started to catch up some relatively unimportant things including LinkedIn. Looking at my feed, there happened to be a video of a man telling the story of the birth of his youngest daughter and it caught my eye. Looking for anything to distract me, I hit play. After starting his story, the man told us that he’d captured video of his infant daughter, taken just a few minutes after she was born. He then played it.

Sitting there in my bed, I watched as his minutes-old daughter began crying and wailing and how this new Dad was twice able to calm her just by talking, telling her he loved her and that he was there for her. It was a beautiful thing to witness how his voice was enough to bring this new life comfort.

And then the gut punch.

Cutting back from the video, the man made the observation that the Father is always talking to us, but we’re so busy crying & carrying on that we don’t always hear his comforting voice. But maybe all we need to do is to stop and listen.

I realize this isn’t the same as a burning bush or two stone tablets being carved with commandments on them, but the message and the timing were not lost on me… especially given where my thoughts had been just minutes before.

So here I sit few hours later feeling somewhat more at peace with the world and not quite so alone. I’m not sure what the journey ahead will look like but, for the moment at least, it does not feel so overwhelming. And I suspect that is the lesson for all of us.

Our tomorrow’s are always still to be written while our past is behind us. It is only now, in this moment, that we exist and that we can affect any change. So I choose to seek out the positive in this experience, whatever may happen. I choose to have it help shape me into a better version of myself going forward for however long that may be. And I choose to believe that, even as my soul cries in the dark, that I can have faith in a father‘s constant love and support.

Know that I’m pulling for you.