Balanced fear?

I had a very tense night last night, one that challenged my trust in God.

My wife had a significantly risky surgery on Tuesday. On the one hand, it was somewhat routine, but on the other, contained a small but real risk of death. She needed to have a section of her colon removed, and there was (is?) a significant chance that the remaining sections would not heal together properly. So after two plus days of post-surgical nausea and vomiting, when she developed a fever last night, I came face-to-face with the possibility of life without her. It wasn't a pleasant prospect.

It took me a long time to start appreciating and loving my wife as she has always deserved. After 25 years of marriage, we finally have the kind of relationship of which (I think) every couple dreams at the outset of their marriage. I can't possibly convey how little I deserve to be in this kind of relationship, the many and extreme ways I nearly destroyed it. That is part of why our marriage is such a sacrament to me, an embodiment of God's love, which none of us can ever deserve, either.

So when she began running a fever last night, after two days of nausea and vomiting, a complex issue became an important one to me:

Do I really trust God to provide for my (and my wife's) every need, in this life and beyond it?
Do I really value God's love more highly than everything else in my life, including every other relationship?
Do I really believe that life in Christ is worth living, even if I am called (as I still might eventually be) to live it without the earthly relationship that matters most to me?

For now, I am relieved that my fears for my wife's health were unfounded, that her recovery is in fact on track. I'm grateful for the opportunity to consider such questions. And I'm thankful, and must be careful not to be excessively so, that I can consider them in the security of an earthly relationship which I treasure and which has been preserved.

Thank you, God, for my wife, but even more, thank you for my life in you.