What can I do? I thought, desperation and panic rising within me. I laid in bed, on my side, and cried. I was a fixer, a problem solver, a solution finder. Surely there was something I could do.
I googled. I WebMD’d. I searched YouTube and went down every rabbit hole I could find. I needed help, and soon.
I tried every trick and remedy, but it only got worse. I couldn’t seem to find my way out of this, and no amount of trying was helping.
I felt like my body had betrayed me—it was broken.
The room was spinning. And spinning. And spinning.
I couldn’t keep anything down, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t care for my family or drive or do all the things that a working mother of four does.
I felt powerless.
I eventually got in to see my primary care doctor who advised me to go to the ER, where I got a CT scan. The doctors diagnosed me with vertigo, prescribing medication to help manage my symptoms, but they were struggling to find the root cause.
Four weeks of off-and-on spinning, and I was not only dizzy, I was desperate. One night I knelt on the floor of my room, tears streaming down my face, and I placed my hands on my ears and prayed. I cried out to Jesus, “Lord, please help me!”
That night was the first night in weeks that I didn’t have any vertigo. I tested the waters, rolling over and turning my head this way and that, to see if it was really, truly gone. It felt too good to be true…but it was. It was gone.
I was immediately flooded with relief and hope. My vertigo is healed!?! I thought. THANK YOU, JESUS! The sickness was not a life sentence; God had heard my cry for help and delivered me.
It reminded me of Psalm 107, which is full of praise and gratitude to God for delivering the Israelites out of Babylonian captivity. Decades of exile, longing for deliverance, longing for home. The passage tells us many were hungry and thirsty, and their souls fainted within them. But in verse 6, it says, “Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.”
There was another woman desperate for healing. She had suffered for twelve years. She had spent everything she had in search of answers and healing from a variety of sources. She did everything she could, and not only did she not get better, she got worse.
Then she heard of a man who could help. A man named Jesus. She thought, If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed. She made her way through the thick crowds, her longing for healing driving her weary legs forward, until finally, she reached out and touched him.
And immediately she was healed. Immediately. Jesus did in one moment what twelve years of searching for answers couldn’t. It was a miracle.
Jesus searched the crowd, asking who had touched Him. She trembled with fear, falling at His feet, expecting Him to reprimand her, but instead He tells her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over” (Mark 5:34 NLT).
“Your suffering is over.” Are those not the words we all long to hear? Our seasons and stories may look different, and we all face unique circumstances, but the things we often long for are similar: we need help, we need rescue, we need someone to show up.
And God is the God who shows up, not leaving us to suffer alone but stepping into our suffering with us. He is no stranger to suffering, and He meets us in it with mercy and compassion and grace.
Just as He did for me that day when I cried out to Him in agony, and just as He did for the woman with the issue of blood when her faith compelled her forward.
We see God’s merciful rescue throughout Scripture:
He rescued the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.
He rescued David several times from the hands of Saul.
He rescued the Jews in Susa from genocide, rescued Daniel from the lions’ den, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace.
And in the ultimate act of rescue and redemption, Jesus went to the cross, rescuing us from the weight of our sin and shame forever.
God is our rescuer.
The Hebrew name for God that David uses in Psalm 18:2 is Jehovah Mephalti, “The Lord My Deliverer.” It means one who delivers or rescues, a preserver—and God continues to rescue us, in big and small ways, proving His faithfulness again and again.
Sometimes our deliverance looks different. Sometimes it comes with specific instructions, like when Elijah prayed for rain during a severe drought and sent his servant to look toward the sea seven times before he spotted the first cloud (1 Kings 18:43–44). Or when Naaman was told to dip in the Jordan River seven times before he was healed (2 Kings 5:14). Or when Joshua led Israel into Jericho, they were given specific instructions to march around the city walls before they ultimately fell (Josh. 6:2–5).
Other times, God tells us to simply be still and wait on Him. Like when King Jehoshaphat and his people were faced with a vast army and the Lord told them, “You will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf” (2 Chronicles 20:17).
Sometimes we are called to step forward in obedience, and other times we are called to simply be patient. But either way, we can trust that God is our source of rescue.
Serving in the local church, I get to celebrate so many miraculous stories of God’s rescue: the marriage rescued from the brink of divorce, the person delivered from addiction, the child saved from impossible circumstances, and the person healed after a difficult diagnosis.
These are the stories that infuse our spirits with hope, and yet they can also raise difficult questions. Questions like:
Why hasn’t God…?
Why is this taking so long?
Why is God silent?
Why, God?
It is always hard to trust God’s plan and power when we’re still waiting for rescue. When we have been praying and seeking and surrendering—but the healing hasn’t come, deliverance feels out of reach, and our circumstances remain unchanged.
I, too, know this pain. There are circumstances and people I have been praying on behalf of for years, and yet still, I wait, not sure if I will ever see the healing and redemption I long for on this side of heaven.
The words, “How long? O Lord,” appear dozens of times in Scripture, because it is human to wrestle and wonder while we wait. It’s easy to become discouraged and defeated, asking where God is and why He’s taking so long.
These are the times when our faith is tested and intimacy with God is cultivated as we continue to trust Him even amid our suffering and unanswered questions. As Charles Spurgeon, the famous nineteenth-century preacher, once said, “God is too good to be unkind, and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.”
When the rescue does come, even if it doesn’t look how we originally thought, may our hearts echo the praise found in the opening of Psalm 107:1–2:
“Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever!
Let the redeemed of the LORD say so,
whom he has redeemed from trouble….”
We must give thanks to God, praising Him for His love and faithfulness. Then we should go and tell others what He has done for us. People need the hope we have in Christ. They need reminders of His power that is still at work in us and in the world. So let us be bold in sharing our testimonies and celebrating the work He has done in our lives.
The NIV translation for verse 2 is, “Let the redeemed of the LORD tell their story.” This is the call to those who have encountered God’s miraculous rescue and redemption: give thanks to the Lord and then go and tell your story.
Prayer: Father, we thank You for the ultimate act of rescue when You sent Your Son to die on the cross for our sins. We thank You for all the ways You have shown Yourself faithful in our stories—in the big things and little things. We submit to You any areas of deliverance we are still contending for and trust in Your plan and timeline. Help us to give You praise and glory in all we do, and to be obedient in telling our story to others. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
