As I look back over the years, I see that our food allergy journey actually began about a year before Chloe actually had her anaphylactic reaction to peanut butter. It was in the late winter of 2015 and I had no idea at the time but God was already preparing me. It was at this point in my life that I made a conscious decision about the type of mother I wanted to be. It was a pivotal decision because it would determine how I reacted to difficult circumstances going forward. I decided that I wanted to be the kind of mother that when my adult children look back, they would be able to say,
"My mom was a rock during the hard times. She was solid. She didn't freak out. She didn't collapse on the bed in a heap of tears. She trusted God and stood firm in her faith that He would see us through."
Not that I have been prone to panicking, but I knew it would be unrealistic to think that during my parenthood journey I wouldn't be tempted to do so at some point.
As it turned out, the remainder of 2015 offered plenty of opportunities to demonstrate strength while under stress. We sold our house, moved in with family, found out I was pregnant with our second child, bought a new house and after five months of living as nomads, we moved into our new home. Throughout this season, my husband's job required him to travel for two weeks at a time. This was certainly one of the harder and most stressful seasons of our lives. We crammed a whole lot of life change into about five months. I wish I could say that I handled it all with grace and poise, but the truth is that choosing to remain steady under pressure has been a growing process for me.
We discovered my daughter was allergic to eggs when she was nine months old. At the urging of her pediatrician, we delayed the introduction of peanut butter until she was two years old. Two weeks after her second birthday, we decided to give it a try. Shortly after she ate a peanut butter cracker, she
You can read about the events of that night here. I was able to remain calm during the whole awful experience by holding onto the Lord for strength. In the days that followed, the questions of "Why me?" "Why her?" and "Why this?" attempted to flood my mind. I knew I couldn't entertain those thoughts. I couldn't allow myself to play the victim and wallow in self pity. Some of you may be thinking,
"What's the big deal? Just avoid that food." But peanuts are tough to avoid. PB&J is one of, if not the most popular kid food around and tons of food processing facilities use the same equipment for peanuts in addition to other foods. So that combined with the fact that when you are in the hospital and your child is being treated for the reaction, you get told about 35 times by every single doctor and nurse that every subsequent reaction will be worse than the previous one. And then you look at your child laying in the hospital bed, hooked up to monitors, who required 2 shots of epinephrine, steroids, a breathing treatment and an I.V., and you think to yourself,
''Worse than this???
The only thing worse than this is death.''
A tangible fear threatened to wrap around my ankles and drown me within itself. It may as well have been a cancer diagnoses for how it felt like I might not be able to keep my daughter alive through her 18th birthday. A battle had been waged against my faith by fear.
And then I got angry.
Livid might be a more accurate term. I was incensed that something as insignificant as a peanut had the potential to take my daughter's life. I knew that I couldn't let fear have the final say. I vowed to make the devil regret the day he messed with my baby. He had awaken Mama Bear. I prayed and told the Lord that when He healed Chloe, not if but when, I woudn't shut up about it. I would tell everyone who would listen, and maybe even some that wouldn't. I bought a year long bible devotional on the subject of healing. I began praying for Chloe's healing, for science to find a cure, and for God to help me encourage other mamas who are battling this fear. To my knowledge I had hardly ever come across anyone who had children with food allergies and it certainly never came up in conversation. But ever since I prayed that, I can't seem to go anywhere without running into another food allergy mom. I'm not even trying to bring it up and moms I meet mention it all the time now. I always tell them how I refuse to live in fear and how God is bigger than this and that it is His will for even food allergies to be healed.
Later that Spring I was studying one of my favorite passages in the bible about faith, Mark 11:23-24.
And then I read verse 25 and the Lord spoke to my heart:
“And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”
Instantly, I saw how there was a person in my life that I was perpetually offended at. This person could not do or say anything right in my eyes. I was always primed and ready to judge and find fault with this person. And I had been making excuses for it for years. I had felt completely justified in my being offended because this person says and does annoying and irritating things. Any logical, rationally thinking person would be offended at this person. And in that same instant, God gently yet firmly spoke these words to my heart:
"You can have Chloe's healing or you can have your offense, but you can't have both..."
God wasn't giving me an ultimatum, He was telling me this because it's the truth and the two issues are connected. Galations 5:6 tells us that faith works by love. If we aren't extending the love of God to others, we can't expect for our faith to move the mountains in our lives. It didn't matter that I was nice and forgiving to everyone else except one person. Walking in love towards others is something that you either are or you are not doing. The bible doesn't give us the option to exempt a few from forgiveness because we feel justified in doing so. I know this runs completely contradictory to the attitude of much of our culture today. But from my perspective, it truly isn't worth the cost. I would absolutely rather have my daughter's healing than hold on to my offense.
So then I repented and asked the Lord to forgive me for my arrogance and I made the decision that going forward, whenever this person said or did something to get under my skin, I would just let it go. This person had no idea I had felt this way, so I didn't think it would be beneficial to have a conversation about it.
And so here we are a year later. I can honestly say that I am not controlled by the fear that once threatened to drown me. Have I arrived? Absolutely not. But I am miles away from where I was. And as for Chloe's healing? Her allergy test in April showed that she is no longer allergic to 3 of the 6 food allergens she tested positive for one year ago. We are making progress and I praise God for His faithfulness. :-)
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