Healing my fear helped my infant
We can count on God to lift fear that would hinder us from caring for loved ones the best we can, as a new mom experienced firsthand one night.
It was the middle of the night. I was a new mom, and I awoke to my daughter crying in her crib. As I ran into her room to soothe her, I realized she was feverish and told my husband that we needed to pray. He could hear the fear in my voice and lovingly said, “I will hold the baby. You go get calm.”
The responsibility of caring for children is a privilege and a joy. And I wanted to be the best mother I could be. That night I discovered something invaluable about helping my children – that is, to free myself from fear helps both them and me.
Peace is what I earnestly needed, and I knew from experience that the most powerful, lasting peace is found in God. So I turned to the 91st Psalm in the Bible, where I read about the all-powerful God who protects His children – which includes all of us. We can count on God in times of trouble.
I found comfort knowing that God is our refuge and a sure defense. I was reassured that God was present to guard us and felt confident that the entire family was resting in the arms of God, who is divine Love. Through prayer I glimpsed something of the spiritual truth taught in Christian Science, based on Jesus’ ministry – that God doesn’t know us as human beings paralyzed by fear and subject to harm, because all Love’s children are spiritual, immortal, always free, always fearless.
When I went back into the bedroom, I was in awe of what I saw. The baby was on the bed playing with her dad – entirely free of a fever. My husband, who had remained calm and steadfast, happily handed her to me and we rejoiced. In direct proportion to the fear being eradicated, the baby’s fever had ended.
That night, I learned to examine my own thought before praying for my children. In “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, writes, “Destroy fear, and you end fever” (p. 376). We can rely on God to help us challenge fear instead of accepting it. This enables us to care and pray effectively for ourselves, our children, and others, with the understanding of God’s infinite and ever-present love.