On the last day of February 2024, I found myself dialing 911. My heart was pounding, my right arm had gone numb, my vision blurry; and I was home alone with my daughter. I remember thinking: They’re not going to get here in time.

Of course, they did, and I was not wearing what I’d have liked to be wearing when a herd of mustached firemen came barreling into my living room. Terror had the louder voice in that moment, but embarrassment managed to speak up too.

At the hospital, the ER doctor held my hand as she explained her suspicions: an active heart attack or a blood clot in my lung. My husband cried, my daughter went quiet, and everything inside me begged God for the chance to keep living the ordinary days I’d begun to take for granted.

As hours blurred together, I kept repeating the only piece of Scripture I knew at the time: “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.” Over and over again, like a lifeline. At one point, I admitted - to the God I had only ever believed in, but not yet known personally - that I didn’t have a handle on this. That I needed help. I surrendered control for maybe the first time in my life.

When the angel of a doctor finally returned, she reassured us that nothing life-threatening was happening but I’d need to see a cardiologist. She wished me well and left. A second later she reappeared in the doorway, looked me in the eyes, and said the words that will never leave me:

“Nicole, God is good.”

Something in me cracked open.