Call on Him

“I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.” Psalm 116:1-2 (ESV)

It was the wake-up call I never wanted: my husband calling out anxiously across the room, doubled over in pain. Face strained, sweat saturating his body. And it was the middle of the night, on an island, on the first full night of our honeymoon.

After we called emergency services, first responders found their way to our remote log cabin, an emergency ferry was prepared, and we braved the choppy spring waters to take an ambulance an hour south to the nearest hospital for my husband to undergo an appendectomy.

I crumpled into a green plastic chair in the waiting room, completely exhausted, body tight. The weight of it all pressed in, heavy and unfathomable.

Wake-up calls come in many shapes and surprises, but the core is the same: an emergency that spills into our hearts as we attempt to keep our composure, knowing we are tilting toward overwhelm any minute. We crumble. We splinter. We are swallowed in a darkness that hammers at us.

It’s difficult to understand. Almost impossible to bear. We cannot, do not, want to face it alone. It is in this time of suffering that words disappear, and our only communication comes through a river of tears and a silence that speaks more profoundly than any other form of speech.

But we know the One who holds us in the middle of the hardship. When we are inconsolable, His Spirit comforts us (John 14:26-27). When we ache, He soothes.

As one psalmist wrote, “I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live” (Psalm 116:1-2).

There is a consistency that comes with knowing God is present with us and will not step away from the situation.

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So honored to be over at Proverbs 31 sharing about calling on God in hardship. Join me?