Fear is one thing. Helpless anxiety is another. Fear brings up your defenses, makes you ready to fight—to take on aggressor and win. Helpless anxiety, on other hand, saps every ounce of energy you have because you know that fighting will do no good and nothing you do will make any difference whatsoever anyway. Helpless anxiety wraps around you like a wet blanket. It weighs on you, takes breath right out of you. It’s a horrible place to be in.

That’s where I was—wrapped in helpless anxiety—as I sat in darkened church, feeling empty and alone. My husband sat beside me, holding my hand, but that didn’t seem to help. Nor did it change fact that our baby was six miles away lying in an incubator, fighting for her life. Born three months early, her tiny body was covered in a mass of tubes and wires. Her legs were size of my husband’s finger, and her tiny little hand couldn’t even get all way around my finger.

And I was helpless to do anything to make her better.

Sure, doctors told me I was lucky that I had taken such good care of myself, that because of my good health, she was developed even beyond 25 weeks she should have been. But I didn’t feel like much of a hero. I felt like I had let down this little one who was counting on me. The should-haves and could-haves ran around in my head constantly bumping into one another and tripping over themselves, fighting to remind me of my guilt. That night, as I listened to what was supposed to be an up-lifting service, I didn’t feel very up-lifted. In fact, I felt more depressed than I ever had in my life.

Then soloist began a song from my past. I knew words by heart although I wonder now if I had ever really understood them. I tried to sing, to get words to come out of my mouth, but my heart just hurt too much. So instead of words, tears came as God whispered to me through that song, “Be not afraid. I go before you always. Come follow Me, and I will give you rest.”