Our daughter is 32 today!  “Happy Birthday!” Amy. (It is not possible that I have a 32 year old daughter—simply not possible! But then, my father has a 32 year old granddaughter! I feel better.)

 

Amy has already read this article and with her permission I am publishing this short piece to share with you a story of terrific growth in self control. My daughter is a woman whom I love deeply and whom I admire greatly. We are good friends and have a wonderful relationship. If she would bring her children to visit me every month we would have no issues with each other at all.

 

I have known Amy for more than 32 years—she was a “jumping bean” in the womb. And having known her that long and lived in the same house with her for 18 years I have had a front row seat on who she was and who she has become.

 

As a child Amy was very fearful. Once when she was about 7 she was visiting at the house of a friend and got locked in a bathroom for more than half an hour until someone arrived who could take the door off. Thus began her fear of small spaces. Other fears followed.

 

In addition to being afraid of small spaces she was also afraid of heights, deep water, elevators (small spaces that moved), flying, something bad happening to her mom or dad, steep and exposed mountain roads, car accidents, and earthquakes (which she has experienced in Alaska, Okinawa, and California).

 

For years she would not even ride an elevator. The first few times she got on one she was trembling and would hold onto my arm in stifled panic—sinking her finger nails two inches into my arm. When the elevator would reach our floor and do that little “jig” as it is stopping she would nearly come out of her skin. On mountain roads she would sit in the middle seat of the car and put her coat over her head. 

 

As a child her fears were often debilitating to her and prevented her from doing some things she might have wanted to do. She did not have the self control to overcome the fear and to make herself do any number of things. That was then.

 

Now Amy is the wife of Captain Joshua H. Nelson, USMC. They have three children and live on Camp Pendleton near San Diego. In ten years as a Marine Corps wife Amy has faced some terrific challenges, many of which surrounded her areas of fear and many of which came to her while Josh was deployed, and she has overcome them wonderfully. She now has the self-control for many things that would have terrified her earlier.

 

The short list of things she has faced include: being stationed in Okinawa for five years which requires repeated flying over deep water, weathering a number of typhoons in a fourth story apartment, evacuating her children (while Josh was away on deployment) from Camp Pendleton in the face of an approaching forest fire, and living on the fourth floor of a military apartment for five years and using the elevator a number of times each day.

 

Four years ago Josh and Amy visited here with their then two children. Josh had to leave early as he was being deployed to the desert and was to finish the vacation and then travel back to Okinawa with the two children. The trip was a little dicey since Amy would be flying standby on military aircraft from San Francisco on and since without Josh present Amy did not have a high priority to get on any flight.

 

She and the children flew a commercial flight to San Francisco. They took a shuttle to the Air Force base. They waited three days before they could get on a flight. They flew to Hawaii. They waited three days before they could get on a flight. They flew to Guam. They waited three days before they could get on a flight. They flew to Okinawa. Many of those nights the three of them slept in the airport terminals. Other times they had to be at a departure gate at 3 AM to see if they would get seats on a given flight. 

 

Amy called about every two days to give us an update. Through the entire ordeal she was tired but calm. She was in control and kept doing what she needed to do in order to shepherd herself and her two children home to Okinawa. The entire journey, with flights and lay overs, ended up being nine days.

 

Kathi and I were here in Houston praying during the whole ordeal and I kept thinking, “Wow my daughter has really grown up and stepped up.”

 

Some of this victory in Amy is the natural result of maturing—30 year olds generally do better than 7 year olds in stressful situations—generally. But some of this victory in her life is a courageous exertion of self-control. It is the willingness to lean on God more and trust that He will sustain her in the face of the threats—thereby eliminating her need for panic.

 

There are many times in life when we must be courageous and make ourselves do what we are afraid to do or do not want to do. Someone said, “The difference between successful people and others is that successful people have the ability to continually make themselves do what they do not want to do.”

 

I am convinced that God uses life’s “elevators” and “winding mountain roads” and “deep waters” in order to call us up to courageous self-control.