“When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy.”
Psalm 94:19 (NIV)
I shared with you in Spoken from the Heart: Walking in Freedom how God had healed me from the fear of winter driving approximately two years ago now. Then, in Spoken from the Heart: God’s Joy Lasts a Lifetime I told how God healed me from depression, something I had lived with since childhood.
Each instance of healing occurred in a different way. I had lived with the fear of winter driving for approximately 17 years at the time God took it away. I just assumed it was my “normal” and didn’t expect that fear to ever change. While my prayer every morning was to invite God into all areas of my life, I don’t recall specifically asking God to heal that area for me, because as I stated, I figured it was something I had to live with. However, God hears all our prayers and I believe because I invited Him into all areas of my life, He chose to answer that prayer in order to work more completely in my life to heal other areas that needed attention as well.
One night in January, in the heart of the winter season, I was driving home from Awana with our kids in the snow and realized I didn’t have the death grip on the wheel I usually did. While I wasn’t singing to the radio or engaging in chitchat, I wasn’t petrified and it was enough of a difference for me to notice.
The following morning when my husband left early for work (due to the blizzard that still raged), I kissed him goodbye with the same calm I had in the summertime with blue skies and clear roads. I didn’t have that irrational fear I had lived with for years that he would instantly be killed on the highway. And that peace and calm has, for the most part, stayed with me for the past two winters.
Last winter, the first full winter after God healed me, was a less than usual snowfall year. I enjoyed that. We had a high schooler taking college classes 35 minutes away and it was nice not having to worry about him driving back and forth on the highway with bad road conditions. There was one evening, though, where the roads were very slippery and I had to get out and drive. I didn’t have a choice. There was no one else who could do it. I felt as though this was a way to prove I trusted God and I believed I was healed. While the drive wasn’t fun (who really enjoys driving in whiteout conditions?), and I gripped the steering wheel tightly, it was normal cautious driving that evening, not irrational fear or panic attacks. I knew God was with me throughout the drive and He had the power to keep our family safe.
This winter, the healing has come full circle. While I used to panic driving seven minutes from my house on back roads with a few snowflakes in the air, with our oldest in college with full time classes, I have been called to drive him 35 minutes away, on the highway, in wintry conditions a few times. And while it’s still not my favorite pastime to drive in a storm, the irrational fear is completely eliminated.
I would even say I enjoy when it snows now. I can look up from driving and see the beauty in the swirling flakes, feel peace when I get behind the wheel and know God is trustworthy.
Come back next time and I will share how healing from my depression occurred just as completely, but very differently, than God took away my fear of winter driving.
© Cheri Swalwell 2018