God spoke to Emma and me last night

Last night God spoke to Emma and me. He spoke very clearly and powerfully, and I want to praise him publicly for speaking to us the way he did.

In the late evening, Annie felt hot. We took her temperature two different ways and both were high – high enough in a 7-week-old to send us to the emergency room as fast as we could go. We were there for four hours and her temperature finally dropped with Tylenol. They couldn’t find what was causing the fever and they sent us home. At 3am, her temperature was back up to an unsafe level again. This time Emma drove Annie to the emergency room while I stayed at home with Samuel. Hovering in the background this whole time was the fear of meningitis, particularly as some of the other tests came back negative and some of the symptoms were concerning.

In my experience there is hardly anything as scary as the possibility that your infant is seriously ill. You feel very helpless and very concerned. So Emma and I needed some strong comfort. And that’s when God spoke. And that’s what I want to praise him for.

A couple nights ago I had been feeling a bit discouraged and had looked through a little box I keep in our basement. It contains many, many index cards with verses I’ve written down and memorized over the years. I haven’t gone to that box for a long time, but a couple nights ago I pulled a card out of the box and stuck it in my pocket. It was a verse Emma had written down and given to me quite a few years ago, soon after we were married. In fact, she gave it to me the day of my oral defense of my doctoral work, one of the most intimidating experiences of my life.

The verses Emma wrote on the card – the card I pulled out the day before taking Annie to the hospital – were Deuteronomy 20.3-4: “Do not be fainthearted. Do not be afraid, or panic, or tremble before them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.”

Do I think it is a coincidence that God led me to pick up that card and put it in my pocket the day before our baby went to the emergency room with a fever? Absolutely not. God was speaking to us through that verse. As we sat in a little room in the ER with Annie last night, I pulled that verse out of my pocket and Emma and I read it together, over and over. We memorized it and prayed it. It strengthened us as we reminded ourselves that God was in the hospital room with us, fighting our battles for us. We were scared, and that verse made us stronger.

God spoke those words through Moses to Israel. And then he spoke them into my life at a scary point a few years ago during my oral defense. And he spoke them to us last night. That’s the primary and best way God speaks: through his Word. When he speaks his perfect, revealed Word into our lives, that’s way better than any subjective impression he gives us. The subjective impressions are gifts from him, too, but they’re nowhere near as stable, reliable, sure, and strength-giving as when he takes the Bible and applies it to us just where we are.

We’ve been in the hospital all day (Sunday), and Annie and Emma will stay there tonight so the doctors can monitor Annie. Early results of a spinal tap are suggesting that Annie does not have meningitis and the fever was caused by a virus. Hopefully we’ll know more tomorrow. We’re trusting God. He’s really good to us. He has supported us through the practical help of our PCF friends, some beautiful visits this afternoon, and the prayers of many of you. And he helped us when we were afraid by speaking his Word directly into our lives.

Thanks, God, for speaking to us.

Posted by Stephen Witmer on Aug 29, 09:03 PM