What Fear Makes Me Forget

Waiting. Watching. Hoping. Praying.

Another scan next week.
Mother’s Day this weekend.

The endless paradox of life and death.
Celebration and mourning.
Joy… and the uncomfortable ache of dread.

So it sits—on my shoulders, my chest, the back of my throat.

Tight. Strained. Tense.

Like wearing a wet blanket all day long. I can still move. Still function. But it is heavy. Uncomfortable. Weighing me down. Sometimes subtly. Sometimes obviously.

Dragging me back to a world of cancer, treatment, biopsies, uncertain futures, and delayed plans.

Cancer feels like a monstrous sea creature circling beneath the surface—tentacles reaching quietly upward, waiting for another chance to pull me back under.

And I am begging, pleading:

No, God. Please don’t take me back there.

Because the future I imagine is always stripped of His presence.

I see the waiting room at the imaging center, but not His hand steadying me as I wait.

I imagine the gut-sickening punch of opening my results, but not the many people He has already provided to help me sort through their meaning and decide my next steps.

I prepare mentally for the implications of another biopsy, the possibility of diving back into the cancer world again, but I fail to remember the verses He faithfully brings to mind to anchor me, the beautiful sisters in Christ He has provided for encouragement, the unexpected strength and resilience He sparked in my body to endure the threat, the exhaustion, the suffering.

I see the storm clearly.
The raging wind.
The lightning.
The deafening roar of terror and panic.

I forget the arms that hold me in it.

The hands, still marked with nail scars, that lift me above the raging sea.

The firm foundation He provided as the waters rose higher and higher.

My anxiety always leads me to a future without Him.

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
His mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is Your faithfulness.
‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,
‘therefore I will hope in Him.’”
— Lamentations 3:21–24

Jesus, help me trust that new mercies will meet me when I need them most.

Not in my imagined future, but in the real one You have prepared for me.

Questions for the Water

·  What future are you imagining without God’s presence in it?

·  How has fear caused you to forget the ways He has already carried you before—and where have you seen Him show up in past storms?”

What future storm are you trying to mentally survive before it has even arrived?

·  When anxiety pulls you into imagined worst-case scenarios, what truths help anchor you back to hope?

·  Where do you need to stop rehearsing fear and start remembering faithfulness?