“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” Isaiah 26:3-4
Do you have a favorite passage of Scripture? Perhaps a verse or passage that the Lord has used to minister to you in a time of need or mold you more into the image of His Son? If so, I challenge you to dig deeper and find out what this Scripture reveals about God and its implications for us.
Looking back over my time as a Christian, I see how Scripture has refined me during different seasons of life. Even so, one passage in particular emerges as the one the Lord used to carry me through my deepest valley to date.
My second child, Wesley, was born in 2017 in liver failure. Over the first months of his life, his medical team determined I could be his living donor. I donated a portion of my liver to him on May 10, 2018, when he was 5 months old. So many of those early days with Wesley were filled with deep grief, trauma, and pain. I also wrestled with my theology in ways I hadn’t previously.
Life had been pretty easy for me until that point. I came to Christ as an adult and became voracious for truth, consuming the word of God and countless theology books, but I’d not been tested in my faith. During transplant, I reached first for the obvious verses, like Philippians 4:6. However, the verses that unexpectedly lodged themselves in my heart were Isaiah 26:3-4. At some point during my Scripture journaling, these verses became my mantra, my lifeline, my teacher, and my comfort. These God-breathed words were an oasis in my desert.
When all the world felt like sinking sand, I ached for perfect peace—the kind that isn’t tethered to circumstances. I needed peace tethered to a person who never forsakes. In my heart I knew that if I looked around at the troubles surrounding me, they would overwhelm me. I needed to fix my gaze on grace and mercy, Himself. Nothing else felt trustworthy and sure, especially compared with the empty reassurances I was receiving from well-meaning people. I needed a rock on which to stand—one that could be my sure foundation even if God didn’t answer my most desperate prayers for Wes’ survival.
These verses in Isaiah paint a picture of God that brings me comfort: He is eternal, sovereign, powerful, unshakeable, and unchanging. Contrarily, I am frail and fragile. I learned in those days that I can’t trust doctors, even highly skilled ones, to hold all the answers or have power over life and death. I couldn’t trust Dr. Google, or all the available knowledge in the world, to help me navigate my son’s prognosis. I couldn’t trust myself, as much as I love Wes and desire good for him. I can only trust in the Living God. His ways are not our ways. He, indeed, is an everlasting rock.
This Scripture still shines for me. It points to a personal God who gets involved in our daily lives. When I draw near to Him, He draws near to me. His daily mercies carry me through my darkest days.
Today, our family is six years out from Wesley’s liver transplant and he’s doing remarkably well. Years after our valley of deep suffering, I no longer only associate this Scripture from Isaiah with my fragility. Now, I think about God Omnipotent on His throne and His perfect track record of faithfulness. I can trust this God forever. It creates a heart of worship within me.
God’s words can create a heart of worship in you, too. Perhaps in your retrospection, you came up empty for truth. I’d urge you, sisters, to mine God’s esteemed Word for truth and begin applying it to your own heart today! The dishes can wait – this is work with eternal implications.
