Safe

Posted on July 15, 2009 12:00 AM MST by Tiffany Kinerson

“And who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Matthew 6:27 (Jesus’ words)

When Joseph turned two, Rob and I took him on a date. We went to his first movie, where he yelled along with the characters in search for Pooh Bear, and of course we took him for some ice cream. He giggled and had the best time receiving both Mom and Dad’s eyes for an entire day.

When we happily traipsed back to the car at the end of the day, Rob and I held one Joseph-hand each. We swung our toddler between us, content that he was safe in our grips. Until he wasn’t. The asphalt slipped beneath his new tennis shoes, sending our birthday boy crashing to the ground to get a scrape up both of his legs and bruise his knees. Facedown, our son’s hands were both still in ours.

We picked him up, dusted him off, hugged him until he stopped crying, and then looked at each other, silenced by how truly powerless we were to protect our own son. He was right between us, wasn’t he? With one hand in his father’s, the other in his mother’s. How could injury attack in the midst of that much protection?

Fast-forward to a little over a week ago. I woke up with another headache. The pain was somewhere behind my eyes, within my nose.

Rob woke up beside me, bleary-eyed himself. “You did that sleep apnea thing all last night.”

Here’s my secret (albeit a noisy one if you’ve been around me overnight): I’ve snored since I was a little kid. My mom and dad used to watch me lolling and snorting on the couch. Shaking their heads, they jokingly wondered how they’d ever “marry me off.” But after truly marrying off to a forgiving sort of guy, my husband began to tell me about more than snoring episodes. Every now and then—such as when I was hugely pregnant or when I have sinus issues—my snoring turns into phases of breathlessness that wake me up until I inhale with such a ferocity one might swear I’d been underwater. Needless to say, it wakes him up, too.

I did some research (on the internet, of course). Through my self-diagnosis, I figured out the headaches I woke with were likely due to a lack of oxygen. And I also found out that apnea has become a possible precursor to a stroke. Not a small threat since my dad is the ten-year survivor of a massive stroke himself. He also has sleep apnea.

Taking matters in my own hands and based on my semi-official research, I came up with an action plan. First I would try to rectify my situation by myself, and if that didn’t work, I’d go to the professionals. So I started clearing my sinuses with saline, using nose spray when necessary, and each night building what Rob termed “The Great Barrier Reef” with pillows separating us. Altogether, those steps should keep me aired out and properly sleeping through the night on my side.

The first night, I woke up so many times I couldn’t count them. Each time, my body had rebelled and flipped onto my back. Sometimes I lay sprawled over and across the sanctified pillow wall. And my headache the next morning sharpened into crystallized points shooting through my eyes. The next night the same thing happened, but it was even worse when compounded by the fitful sleep of the night before. The headaches began to last all day.

Instead of subsiding, the problems grew. I began to think about the apnea all the time. What if I couldn’t kick this? What if I had to go on some breathing machine? How on earth could my husband continue to find appeal in me after he watched me with what looks like a genie’s lamp shoved up my nose, draining my sinus demons? And what about The Reef? How did it affect us if the only place we could connect was the very tips of our toes? I’d now convinced myself I’d die not only earlier but also isolated.

Finally it hit me. I remembered back to the birthday incident with Joseph. He fell, didn’t he? He scraped up his knees and suffered on his own birthday…while he was in my hands. We were simply insufficient for him. As close and watchful as I was, I could not protect my own small son.

In the same way I was insufficient for my own protection. Although I can do certain things to increase the life in my years, I really can do nothing to increase the years of my life. God has already set the time of my death just as He’d set the time of my birth. I am in His hands. And in those hands I will find more than sufficiency, I will find life. More life than I could fabricate in a restless, aching, lonely existence of my own creation.

Surrendered to that truth yet one more time, I decided to knock down the barrier between Rob and me. I ceased the incessant washing of the nose. And my mind stilled during the day, cleared for the more appropriate, worshipful thoughts God had in store for me. Until a doctor or an authority of some sort tells me otherwise, I will continue on in this worry-free zone. I’ll live my life safe in the only hands that matter. And guess what. Since that epiphany, I haven’t woken up once in the night and haven’t had a morning headache.

Praise God for His true safety and peace.

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