"Don't Panic...ATTACK!!!"

This past weekend has been one of the hardest weekends in a long time. 3 years to be exact. It was 3 years ago I experienced a flare up in Lupus that caused me to be in pain, heartache, and stress. I was beginning to feel scared and nervous at the thought of going back to that dark place.

I was experiencing loss of breath, heart racing, and numbness. I wasn't sure what was going on but it came in spurts and was a constant reminder that something was wrong.

I went to the clinic on Monday afternoon and did bloodwork for my rheumatologist who specializes in Lupus. He never called me back which told me it wasn't Lupus related. Monday night came and I did something I had never done before, I volunteered to take a field trip to the emergency room...at 11pm! Wow, have you ever been to an ER at that time of night? Well, if you ever want to see drama-go there!!! It had hit me so hard I could barely stand up straight and Jeremy knew something was not right.

The ER doctor did an EKG on my heart which came back clean. My heart was fine. With that being said, "you are experiencing a panic attack." What? Really? But, I am not stressed. The doctor said that panic attacks can hit at any time and can last days, months, or random moments. I was shocked. He gave me pain management and explained that when your body goes in to overdrive to fight for relief you release carbon dioxide. You need that to calm you down. A thing I could do is take a paper bag and breath in it. When you breath in and out you are taking back in what you were letting out. I was immediately brought back to scenes from movies when you see people breathing in small paper bags and I giggled inside at the thought of me doing that. At that moment, I was willing to do WHATEVER I needed to do.

I have been trying to figure out the "WHY?" in this and I come up with no answer. I was at work today when a co-worker asked me how I was feeling and I explained my situation. She said that the enemy is threatened by me and is trying to distract me from doing God's work. I was stumped at that seeing as I don't feel as if I have modeled Christ very well. She explained to me that it doesn't matter. The devil is out to do 3 things...steal, kill, and destroy. God spoke through her by using the story of Job and his afflictions. I had forgotten about Job. Job was a man who, when I was going through hard years with Lupus, showed me how to stand strong for the Lord and prove the enemy wrong. When everything and everyone was taken away from Job he stood up and beside the Lord through it all. That was a reminder to me to stand firm in all that I believe.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding" Proverbs 3:5

That means trusting in the Lord with everything and not trying to "think" or "understand" it. TRUST. BELIEVE. FAITH.

So here it is...PANIC ATTACKS!?! Well, I have decided to let God be in charge of this battle. I am a part of HIS army and HE is saying to me, "Don't panic...ATTACK!!!"