Fear

One of the things I have wrestled with a lot is fear. We have silly, far-fetched fears sometimes. But when something like this happens to you without warning, and you think it could happen again, it does create a very real and not too far-fetched fear. Symptoms will flare up sometimes, making it feel like another impending attack. The first year or two especially I was in great distress when symptoms flared up, partly because I hated it and was so frustrated by it, but partly due to fear – fear of another attack, a worse attack, or MS. Now I have pretty much learned to roll with the punches, and to know that these things are most likely a temporary flare-up, though they still throw me for a loop sometimes. For a while I was having panic attacks, and I think it was an outgrowth of all of this. We all know our life is “but a vapor,” that we don’t have the promise of another breath, that good health is no guarantee: some of us don’t fear death as much as we fear the thought of being an invalid. But we pretty much think that kind of thing will happen years later, not any time soon. Then when it does, we are shaken and feel insecure. What helped me most, again, was Scripture. Verses like

Ps 56:3   What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.
 
Isaiah 12: 2   Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.

(One blessing of this verse is that He is not just my strength, and I have to grin and bear it – but He is also my song.)

Isaiah 41:10  Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

Philippians 4: 6   Be careful (anxious) for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 7   And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

 
Sometimes I had to very deliberately go through those verses word by word and deliberately exercise faith. That is what it comes back to: trust in Who God is, that He is good, that He is in control, that even if He allowed another attack to come, He would be with me and help me just like He did the first time. This is not a “once for all” momentous breakthrough, but rather a sometimes daily exercise.