Daily writing prompt

What’s a moment that made you realize you were stronger than you thought?

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Three years ago, I faced a medical crisis I could never have imagined: a massive blood clot lodged between my lungs. When the doctor explained the procedure, he told me their best outcomes came when the patient stayed awake—fully conscious—while they entered the artery in the groin, threaded their way up to the clot, and attempted to remove it.

I chose that option.

The only sharp pain came at the beginning, when they made the incision to insert the camera, tools, and vacuum device. After that, the numbing medication did its work. I could feel pressure, movement, the sense of something happening inside me—but no pain. It was surreal, lying there awake while a team worked to save my life.

About halfway through, something shifted. I wasn’t hurting, but a wave of deep, unexplainable sickness washed over me. A heaviness. A fading. And because I was awake, I heard everything—including the nurse’s voice saying, “Doctor, the blood pressure is dropping fast.”

In that instant, I thought I had died.

I remember saying, clearly and calmly, “Here I am, Lord.”
And that was the moment I discovered a strength I never knew I had.

There was no fear. No panic. No clinging to the world behind me. Instead, I felt a peace so complete it defies description—TOTAL PEACE, unlike anything I had ever known in my earthly life. I don’t know where I went, exactly. The best way I can explain it is that I felt as if I were in a waiting area, suspended between two possibilities: whether the doctors would bring me back, or whether my journey would continue elsewhere.

They did bring me back. I woke on the operating table, alive.

That moment changed me. All my life, I had heard that death was something to fear, something to brace for, something dark and terrifying. And for most of my life, I believed it. I carried that fear quietly, the way many people do.

But in that one extraordinary moment—when I thought I had crossed over—I felt no fear at all. Only peace. Only readiness. Only strength.

I survived, and I am grateful. But the experience left me with a truth I carry every day:
I am stronger than I ever imagined, and I no longer fear dying.