Self Discovery 2 part 2

Entry: Faith

My first experience with faith occurred when I was about 5 years old. Around that age I started to have severe episodes of sleepwalking. It was really quite bad. I would go outside and walk toward the highway. (We lived in the country.) My mom would wake up to find me outside then run out and steer me back into the house. Or I would walk out into the field behind our house with the dog. Or mess around in the kitchen opening drawers and the fridge and pulling things out. These sleepwalking episodes went on for a long time. I had anxiety attacks leading up to bedtime. I was always so scared that something bad was going to happen while we were asleep. Like someone was going to break in or the house was going to catch on fire and we would all die, you know, really traumatic things like that. I was way embarrassed to tell my mom that I was having these panic attacks. But after doing some medical research, my mom figured it out anyway, and concluded that anxiety was most likely the cause of the sleepwalking.
Wanting to ease my fears, and not really knowing what else to do, my mom taught me how to pray. Up until that point I don't think I had ever prayed before. Growing up in an inactive household, we just didn't pray as a family. Not at dinner, not before bed, not in the mornings. Never. But Mom knelt beside my bed one night and we said a prayer together. She prayed that we would all be protected while we slept and afterwards emphasized that Heavenly Father and Jesus would watch over me, so not to worry. This was such a huge thing for just a small girl. Every night after that I never forgot to say a prayer, whether it was with my mom or by myself. I had been taught that there was a God and that there was a Savior. A mustard seed had been planted. And I had so much faith in them. I had faith they would keep me safe. And not long after, my sleepwalking episodes stopped completely.