911, What's Your Emergency?

911, what's your emergency?

I don’t often spill the “tea” on the crisis of our lives. I mean, not until I feel healed up and the wound is covered beyond just a scab. I prefer to share from scars not wounds. This particular account is no metaphor. We had to call 911 for help with our oldest daughter Addison.

She’s home now. And I type these words in the darkness of my room laying in my bed as I have just gently tucked every child into theirs, including Addie. Thank God.

The kids were loading up in the car as they usually do. Half in and half still grabbing a snack or a shoe and me trailing behind making sure the lights are off and no one left their hoodie or a necessary duffel bag. Before I could get to the front door, I hear the noise of gagging, and my son patting my oldest daughter on her back on the front porch of our home, “Mom! Quick she is choking.”

“MARCUS!!!!” Addie, calm down, breathe baby. In your nose out your mouth. Addie can you look at me? Addie say something. MARCUS!!!!!”

Every kid rallied around their sister. Marcus began attempts to dislodge what was stuck. I moved to prayer mode, and the kids all expressed their desire to “just call 911!” We did. In that moment it felt best to call for help. Help came in the form of a medic. Peace flowed. Addie was treated and now she is home.

“911, What’s your emergency?” The question no one wants to hear on the other end of the phone. But in a moment of crisis it actually feels like hope speaking to you. Someone to listen. Someone who is calm. Someone who will send help and is actually trained to stay on the line until the medics come through.

Dialing those three numbers for me was a cry out to God the best way I knew in that moment, expressing my need to the one who could save her, “Jesus I don’t know what to do!”As my son and I ran to the top of the driveway waiting to flag down the paramedic, help on the way, my heart cried in a whisper, “Not today Satan. You don’t get to dim Addie’s light.”

Addie was treated at Children’s Hospital and was released to come home with instructions to follow up with her specialist. The first words out of her mouth to all of her siblings as she flung open the door, “I’m back guys, Addie is BAAACK!” We all laughed, and then I cried. “Not today Satan. You don’t get to dim Addie’s light.”

“911, What’s your emergency?” The question no one wants to hear on the other end of the phone. But a question God asks us any time. I don’t know the wound you are walking with. I don’t understand the powerlessness you fill in your circumstance. I can’t imaging the ache of your heart from that fractured relationship, but I know in a moment of crisis God’s asking, what’s your emergency? That response is actually hope speaking to you. He wants to listen. He’s not surprised. He is the help. And He will stay on the line never leaving or forsaking you. Not today Satan. He doesn’t get to dim your light.