“Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.” – Psalm 62:5-6
Did you ever get one of those phone calls? The one that sends a shiver up your spine? The one you know is just full of bad news and about to make your day go down the tubes? The one where time stands still while the floor drops out from under you? The ones that get you started praying immediately and without ceasing. I hope you haven’t. But I’ve gotten so many that now I can tell by the ring and time of day if it’s going to be bad news.
There’s the phone calls I’ve gotten to tell me a family member is being rushed to the hospital. These usually happened between 1-2am or at 6pm. Then there were the phone calls I’d gotten while I’m teaching from my children’s school telling me to come quickly because: my daughter had passed out at school. Then when another daughter had broken her ankle during soccer practice. Or the one to tell me my son was hit with a ball or had a collision during a soccer game, baseball game, basketball game, football game (take your pick he did it all).
My son seemed to specialize in phone calls that always ended up in trips to the hospital for stitches, casts, operations or slings. I kid you not when I tell you they greeted him by name as we entered the emergency room.
Then one day, there was the time I got a call from him while he was at college. “Mom. I’m in trouble.”
My heart sank and started racing at the same time. I started praying as I’m grabbing my keys and started heading to the car wondering if it will be a trip to Rutgers, the ER, or will he need to be airlifted somewhere. As I’m opening the door to leave, I’m asking what happened.
He’s in tears as he says,“Mom, as I was walking down the stairs, I dropped (wait for it)…
a pot full of spaghetti sauce and it splattered all over the wall and the carpeted steps. I don’t know what to do.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, closed the door and put down my car keys and said, “Thank you, Jesus. You can be on standby. This I can deal with.” I think God was happy that he could take a break as I handled this call for help.
Epilogue: My family has now been well trained to begin phone calls with, “Everything is fine, we’re not in a hospital and no one is hurt.”
Prayer: Lord, How wonderful and comforting that I can call on You any time day or night. You are with us in all our moments and in all our seasons. Amen!
