When Peace Landed on My Arm
In 2002, I thought I was losing my mind.
I wasn’t being dramatic.
I truly believed it.
Fear had become my constant companion. From the moment I opened my eyes in the morning until I finally fell asleep at night, it was there.
Panic attacks.
Racing thoughts.
A body that never felt safe.
Even my dreams became places where fear found me.
I tried to outrun it.
I tried to numb it.
Alcohol worked for a while.
Drugs worked for a while.
Until they didn’t.
The fear found me there too.
The panic had become so overwhelming that I honestly believed I had only two options: check myself into a psychiatric hospital… or I wasn’t going to survive it. I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life that way.
My world was slowly falling apart.
My relationships were strained.
My body was carrying the weight of it all.
Everything felt heavy.
I was exhausted.
Then one day, desperate for just a moment of relief from the relentless noise inside my mind, I walked outside and sat down on the back deck.
I looked toward the sky and cried out,
“What, God? What?”
It wasn’t a polished prayer.
It wasn’t full of faith.
It was simply the cry of someone who had reached the end of herself.
Then a ladybug landed on my arm.
Of all things…
a tiny little ladybug.
I watched it crawl across my skin and found myself completely captivated. I studied the black dots on its back. The brilliant red of its wings. Its tiny legs. Its delicate antennae. I even noticed the gentle feeling of its little feet moving across my arm.
For several minutes, nothing else existed.
Not the fear.
Not the panic.
Not the pain.
Not the relationships that felt so heavy.
Just me…
and this tiny little creature moving slowly across my skin.
Then something shifted.
A tingling sensation moved through my body, and an unfamiliar stillness settled over me.
The fear was gone.
Not forever.
Not even for the rest of the day.
But for those few moments…
the noise stopped.
I remember quietly looking around and wondering,
“What was that?”
I had never experienced peace like that before.
Not once in my life.
And suddenly…
I desperately wanted more.
At that point in my life, I wanted very little to do with religion. I had grown up around church, but I didn’t feel like I truly knew God. My experiences had left me guarded, skeptical, and unwilling to listen.
God seemed to understand that.
He didn’t send someone onto my deck carrying a Bible.
He didn’t send a sermon.
He sent a ladybug.
Something small enough that I wouldn’t resist.
Something beautiful enough to quiet me.
Something ordinary enough that I might have overlooked on any other day.
But I didn’t overlook it.
Looking back now, I can see that the ladybug didn’t arrive with all the answers.
My life didn’t instantly change when it flew away.
The fear didn’t disappear overnight.
There was still deep healing ahead of me.
There was still inner work to do.
There were still choices I would have to make, one day at a time.
But something had begun.
For the first time in my life…
I had experienced peace.
And where peace had found me,
hope quietly followed.
I didn’t know it then, but that tiny ladybug would become the first breadcrumb leading me toward a completely different way of living.
~~~~~~~
Part of the Breadcrumbs collection by Abby Lewis—true stories that leave room for God to speak.