Flesh Woman Rears Her Ugly Head

Flesh Woman is driving me crazy. That's right, Flesh Woman is making me nuts.

We had a wonderful evening planned for Friday. The kids were staying with my parents and my hubby and I were going on a much needed date. We were having a great time at dinner, and then over dessert Flesh Woman showed up. And we ended up spending the rest of our date in the ER.

Let me explain.

My mother has a slew of cardiac problems that started in her early 30's. My family is plagued with coronary heart disease, two of my grandparents dying a sudden death due to a 'cardiac event'. At 29, I'm already on hypertension medication and with 30 looming around the corner, I have basically been waiting on my heart attack. Or stroke. So, when I started having pressure in my chest, it really frightened me. But I knew in my heart (the proverbial one, that is!) that everything was fine. We really could have continued our date night. But Flesh Woman disagreed.

We went straight to the ER. I was put on oxygen, hooked to a zillion monitors, an IV was placed, labs ran and a chest xray done. FOUR hours later (and far too late to resume date night) the doctor came in and said everything looked great except the chest xray. I held my breath and then he said it.... a huge pocket of air was pushing up on my diaphragm, causing the pressure in my chest and referred pain between my shoulder blades.

I needed to burp (I don't burp. Can't burp. My body physically won't do it, but it's never been a major medical problem before). Flesh Woman was embarrassed. Hubby was disappointed date night had come and gone. We left the ER with heads hanging low.

It wasn't all bad however. It was nice to know that the 'ol ticker is in good shape. I'm not going to be having that heart attack or stroke anytime soon. And there is absolutely nothing that indicates that I will wind up with heart disease either. Nothing. So that's good.

But someone still needs to convince Flesh Woman that everything is OK.

As I sat in that hospital bed, I kept hearing God say to me "You can either hold on to this life with all your might, or you can hold on to me. I have control of this, dear child. I need you to stop worrying about this so that you can do the work I have planned for you".

I reminded myself of my two year old son. We went to the children's museum last week and hardly made it in the entrance before he began screaming. He was frightened by the huge dinosaur fossil in the entrance and I couldn't blame him. It WAS kind of scary! But he was able to deal with his fear and move forward. And thankfully, because there was so much more past that fear that he wouldn't have experienced had he not been able to walk past those bones.

My prayer this week is that God will be hard at work in my heart. That he will lift this burden of fear so that I can enjoy all the wonderful things he has blessed me with!

I hope you all have a great week!!! Thanks for stopping by!!!