Conversations With Colton: A Story of Fear, Faith and Doubt

By Julie Catania-Shady

Life is just a series of short stories, and every decision you make becomes part of your story. When in the moment, will you choose faith over fear or fear over faith? It's an easy question to answer when you aren't in the "storm" but a huge question when something near and dear to you is in jeopardy.

Like many girls do, Julie dreamed of becoming a mommy. She dreamed of a perfect life for and with her child. After suffering a miscarriage and a cancer diagnosis, finding out she was pregnant was an incredible miracle. But what happened next put her faith to the test, more so than the previous trials. How do you keep having faith when you are caught in a "storm?" Conversations with Colton will explore just that! Colton survived despite what doctors said, and conversations with him have made all the fear, faith, and doubt that got to this moment 100 percent worth it.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798888321027

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Conversations With Colton

A Story of Fear, Faith and Doubt

Julie Catania-Shady

ISBN 979-8-88832-101-0 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88832-102-7 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Julie Catania-Shady

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Conclusion

About the Author

To Colton. Thank you for solidifying my faith and belief that miracles do happen.

To Chris. You have always believed in me. Thank you for encouraging me to accomplish whatever my heart desires and for never once telling me I couldn't do something.

To Mom and Dad. You raised me to believe in myself. Thank you for that and for raising me in a loving Christian home where prayer was the number one priority.

To Serrah and Beth. Thank you for your consistent reminders to write this book. You gals didn't let it go and forced my hand to get it done.

Introduction

As the plane reached ten thousand feet, I knew my options were limited.

Either I would willingly jump, or the man attached to my back was going to push me out. Skydiving is a lot like faith. In fact, skydiving is taking a leap of faith. Both skydiving and faith involve complete trust in something or someone when the outcome isn't known and cannot be predicted.

I had faith when I jumped out of that perfectly good airplane. I had faith that the trainer was strapped to my back; God bless his messy heart. He was still wearing his Baltimore Ravens pajamas, but still I had faith he checked the equipment. I had faith he was qualified and prepared to open the parachute and land us safely on the ground.

Faith, like skydiving, is not jumping in blind, rather you are making an informed decision based on research and circumstances. I've struggled with this comparison over the years. How could I so willingly have jumped out of that plane but, when faced with a personal storm (a traumatic pregnancy with my son), I felt like my faith was wavering. I felt guilty and confused. Those feelings were only made stronger by the fact that I had been raised going to church. I knew my faith was rooted in biblical research, not to mention my grandfather Sam on my dad's side and my great-grandfather Felix on my mom's side were ministers.

I blamed myself for not being more prepared to handle the storm in the right way. I don't even know what I meant by that, but I felt like my faith should have been stronger. I didn't feel 100 percent peaceful in the storm.

One day I decided to stop beating myself up for receiving a miracle and not having big faith. I also learned a valued lesson. We all handle situations differently. The situations we are placed in are all part of our story. The thing is, just because I felt like my faith was wavering, it doesn't necessarily mean that was the case. Your faith doesn't have to be big, it just must be present. I now know that my faith was still present. I was speaking the right words and praying for my miracle; my heart was just a few steps behind.

August 18, this day always brings up so many emotions. It's the day my now seven-year-old son Colton was born. While pregnant with him, I didn't have the strength or mental capacity to discuss the situation on social media or outside of my close family/friends/church circle. I didn't google, and I honestly had no clue how bad things were. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty because I have since googled, and now I know. While unable to share in the moment, sharing after the storm is something I have always found therapeutic. And so today and every day, we are thankful! My prayer is that Colton's story will bring you hope on the hard days. My hope is that his conversations will help you laugh on the sad days. Peace during a storm comes from faith, regardless of how big or small your faith is.

When you combine prayer, hope, and faith, you will be encouraged, and your heart will soften, making it easier to acknowledge the tiny or big miracles that happen along the way.

I'm not a huge fan of the saying What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, but there is so much truth in it. Sometimes you must be strong to just get out of bed and make it through the day. Sometimes, life seems so bad and so hard that you wonder how it's this possible to live another moment. But those moments, the hard ones, the insignificant ones, the happy ones, are all part of your story. Charles de Lint said, We're all made of stories. When they finally put us underground, the stories are what will go on, not forever, perhaps, but for a time. It's a kind of immortality, I suppose, bounded by limits. It's true, but then, so's everything.

Life is a bunch of stories. A new day is a new chapter. The past doesn't predict the future. We are all made of stories: Here's Colton's…

Chapter 1

August 16, 2022

In two days, my miracle baby, Colton, will turn seven. It's a big week: First grade starts tomorrow; his birthday is the following day. My mind is literally racing with all the excitement of the week, yet I still get stuck in the memories of August 18, seven years ago. The fear, the excitement,