As I was praying one day back in October of 2018, I heard God ask me very distinctly to only pray prayers of gratitude for the rest of the month.
I’ve done onesie and twosie prayers like that before, but never for almost a month straight. Honestly, I was really excited to pray this way, especially since my focus for that month was gratitude.
Surprise! A Trip to the Emergency Room
A few hours later, my 9-year-old daughter came to me and told me her heart was beating really fast. I put my hand on her chest and the saying, “my heart was beating out of my chest,” came to life for me. Her heart was beating so hard and so fast that I felt like I was holding it in my hand.
We rushed her to the ER and, after what felt like an eternity in the nurse’s station, we were taken back to a room where a doctor, nurses, and machines were waiting for her. The doctor was so calm. As he was hooking her up to the EKG machine, he calmly told us that he had a pretty good idea of what was going on. After he hooked her up to the machine, he did a couple of really simple things and her heart rate dropped from over 300 back to the 150s and then down to a normal heart rate.
We discovered she has supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). A simple explanation is that her heart had extra electrical pathways that would occasionally cause her heart to beat very quickly. Fortunately, this was easily fixed through a relatively simple procedure called an ablation to cauterize the extra pathway in her heart to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.
My Prayers of Gratitude at the Hospital
As we sat in the hospital only a few hours after I received the inspiration I needed to pray only in gratitude, I knew I needed to keep to that practice.
I prayed with my whole heart in gratitude that:
- My daughter was with my husband and me when this happened.
- Immediately upon our arrival, the doctors knew what was wrong and corrected it without medication.
- Everyone around my daughter was so kind to her.
- She had a therapist who she can share her feelings with about this experience and talk about concerns of the upcoming ablation.
The list of my gratitudes around this event is endless, and I see more to be grateful for each day! That doesn’t mean it was easy. The medicine she was on until the procedure made her very tired for the first two weeks. Between the moment of her diagnosis and when she had the ablation, I wasn’t worried that she would go into tachycardia again.
Every time I prayed, I could feel God telling me to be grateful that she would be okay and to express gratitude out loud that her heart would be good that day.
I have no doubt that at the beginning of 2018, God knew exactly what he was doing when He told me my focus for October was gratitude.
Heart Full of Gratitude
My focus on gratitude helped this situation, which sometimes felt overwhelming, not to feel suffocating. My heart continues to be so full of gratitude for all the wonderful and supportive people my family and I have in our lives.
Looking back at this experience a little over four years ago, I’m amazed that God asked me to pray prayers of gratitude that month.
Every single prayer was to be gratitude only.
My prayers changed that month.
They became less self-focused and more of a combination between God and me.
I’m so grateful to focus on gratitude again this month.
God is good, and I’m grateful.
