Do we have fear? Or do we have faith?

This past Wednesday, I was confronted with a choice. This choice had been building for several years, ever since I had a consultation with an ortho-facial surgeon to have my wisdom teeth removed. In this consultation, I disclosed that I have a heart disorder called Mitral Valve Prolapse. It affects nearly 5% of all women to varying degrees, and mine is a textbook example. I’ve had many doctors hear about me and simply want to listen to my heart to see what it sounds like. Normally, with taking care of myself, I forget that I even have MVP until I do something stupid to cause it to act up. I told the doctor all of this, where he examined my x-rays, did some more surveys and then sat down with me to go over the risks of the surgery. He told me that because of where one of my teeth was located, it was possible that he could put a hole in my sinuses that could become infected. MVP patients are very susceptible to the kind of bacteria that lives in the human mouth and if these bacteria were introduced at a high dose into the blood stream, it could infect my heart valve and cause it to stop beating. He looked me straight in the eye and told me there was a very real chance I wouldn’t survive. Needless to say, I decided I liked breathing and my wisdom tooth was fine where it was. I left the office without any plans to ever return. Fast forward to 2005. I was having a routine x-ray at my chiropractor’s office and he noticed that my wisdom teeth had turned sideways and were very clearly impacting the rest of my teeth. He told me that I should have it checked out and asked if it hurt. I told him that it did, but I was more willing to put up with the pain rather than end up dead. Instead of taking that as an answer, he gave my x-rays to another patient of his who is a dentist. I scheduled an appointment with the dentist who then referred me to another ortho-facial surgeon. This surgeon when I met him was incredibly sure of himself, incredibly flamboyant, and exactly not what you would expect a doctor to be like. I had heard from everyone I talked to that he was the best in the field and preformed thousands of extractions a year. I met with him and he assured me that he did hundreds of surgeries each year on people with MVP and that because of my age and my general good health that he didn’t plan on any trouble at all. He also told me that he had never lost a patient out of thousands upon thousands and only had two or three with real issues after the surgery. He told me he wasn’t about to ruin that record. I scheduled the surgery and walked out of the office feeling confident that everything would be fine. As the weeks until the surgery went by, I found that more and more I lost that feeling of confidence and I regained the fear I had lived with in the years leading up to the appointment. Looking back on it now, I am much the same with God. I lose my confidence in Him and go back to fearing whatever is on my mind. By the time Wednesday, November 16th rolled around, I was good and scared. Monday, open enrollment for my insurance was ending and I upped my life insurance and my short and long-term disability. Wednesday, I found myself sitting in the waiting room, trying not to chicken out and run. They came out for me and escorted me to a room with a big chair that they got me comfortable in. As soon as I was in the chair and positioned correctly, the nurse strapped a face mask on me and told me to breathe deeply, that it was a mixture of Nitrous and Oxygen and I’d be fine and feel floaty, then go to sleep. I found that in that moment there was no going back and I was now facing a decision. Was I going to go to sleep in faith or in fear? How many times do we need to ask ourselves that? How many times do we give in to fear and not even consider that we are failing at faith. A very wise person once told me that the very opposite of faith was fear, and fear is such an easy choice. Do we have a fear of commitment or do we have faith that we can follow through? Do we have a fear of failure or faith that we can succeed? Do we have a fear of not being accepted or faith that people love us? Do we have fear? Or do we have faith? I believe how we make that decision every day affects every part of our lives. It’s not just faith in God: it’s faith in ourselves, it’s faith in those around us, and it’s faith in everything we do. I believe this struggle is universal, and if you wish to use it in a story, please let me know! I believe one of the most realistic parts of characterization is looking into the character’s soul and spirit and seeing what makes them act the way they do in the story. This would be a great thing to think about if you are writing a story – what is your character afraid of? What do they have faith in? How does that affect the life you are building around them? If you do take this challenge, please send me a link!