by Connie Rae

Created on: September 02, 2009   Last Updated: September 12, 2009

I lay on the hard bench in an unoccupied hall in the hospital. Tears were flowing. I was gripped with fear.

My 15 year old son had been airlifted to a local trauma center. We were waiting in the ICU while brain surgeons worked to clip a ruptured brain aneurism.

As I lay there, fear washed over me in waves. My husband, and friends who had driven three hours to wait with us, were in the ICU waiting room. Waiting. We had been told the surgery would take seven, maybe eight hours. We were into the tenth hour since we had walked beside his gurney on the way to the operating room. He had been given a 25% chance of survival.

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I heard the words, "God has not given us a spirit of fear...," "God has not given us a spirit of fear...," "God has not given us a spirit of fear ..."

The words grew louder and stronger. But I was afraid. My son might die. As I struggled with my fear, wanting to trust God with my son's life, I thought of Abraham and Isaac, of Adam and his sons, Cain and Abel. I thought of the father in the New Testament and his prodigal son, not knowing where he was, or if he was dead or alive. I thought of my son. I thought of God, and His Son.

Other words from the Scripture began rolling across my mind. "Fear not those who can kill the body, but fear God! (Luke 12:5). The words following stated that God remembers every one of the tiny sparrows that fall. Then the statement, we are worth more to God than many sparrows.

I knew the men who were with my son in that operating room were just men. Trained, skillful men. Outstanding surgeons. But mere men. God was reminding me there is nothing a mortal man can do, or fail to do, that is beyond the power and the will of God. He was reminding me that my son was in His hands, not the hands of mortal men.

Romans 8:31-39 tells us, if God is for us, who can be against us? What can the enemy do to harm us? Who, what, can separate us from the love of Christ? Trouble, hardship, persecution, peril, famine, danger, sword? No. Paul said he was convinced that neither death, not life, angels, demons, present, future, not anything in all creation can separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus.

I had to face the reality that my son might die on that surgeon's table. I had to relinquish my hold on him, and put him totally in God's hands. Whether he lived, or died, was God's to choose, not mine. I had to decide whether I would continue to love and serve God, even if he took from me what was

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