Call Upon Me (Part One)

When you can't write your own story... where do you turn?

I always wanted to be a mommy when I grew up. Not a fireman, or an astronaut, or even a doctor like my first-grade classmates. Just a mommy.

At twenty-eight, my dream came true. I was pregnant with our first child. Twenty weeks into the pregnancy, I knew my blessing was a baby girl! A girl! And I would name her Meagan. I would finally enter into my most anticipated joy and the greatest blessing of my life.

That would be if we could write the story. Labor wouldn’t hurt. The baby wouldn’t stop breathing. The wrapped bundle would snuggle into our arms and come home in three days. Not six months. Not with the battle wounds of scars that told the tale of a life nearly lost. No. Not our story. Not that way.

But what if we can’t write it? What if it goes another way? A way that brings us to our knees. Tears out our heart. And leaves us with nothing left to cling to… but Jesus.

It had been a heat wave. The worst NJ had seen in years… decades. I felt miserable and canceled all my appointments for the week. I woke one morning early, 4 am, with the worst headache I had ever experienced. On top of that, I was edgy—like I needed to climb out of my skin. I couldn’t settle. Couldn’t stop the pounding in my head. By 6 am, I woke Peter and told him I needed to get out of the apartment. Anywhere. My parent’s house, I decided. I needed to go there.

Before we left the apartment that morning, Peter handed me a pack of scripture cards sitting on the counter. He said, “Pick one. Say it over and over again. It will help get your mind off your headache.” So I picked. More to get him off my back in that moment, than to find comfort in God’s word. I picked, and I read:

Call upon Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me (Psalm 50:15).

I never knew what that day would bring. The day I needed to call upon Him. The day of trouble. How I would visit the doctor that afternoon. How he would tell me that my baby… my baby who still had 8 weeks until full-term… would need to be born that night. How I would teeter on the edge of a coma and my little girl would be delivered by emergency C-section, weighing only 2 pounds, 15 ounces. How she would enter this world fighting for her life… six months of fighting in a Neonatal Unit. How she would endure needles and tubes, surgeries and beeping noises. Harsh lights and severe touch. How I would drive home, alone, without my baby. And wonder why the world kept going.

Was that how it ought to be? How being a mommy ought to be? Is that how it would have been if I could write it myself? Only I can’t. None of us can. Instead, we hold on. Hold on to His promise. His sovereignty. His goodness. Because even in that, even in the doubt and the pain, He is good.

This was His note to me. His personal note. Before it all began. Before I would walk through the fire. And this is His note to you...

Call upon Me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.