Who Gives The Next Heartbeat? Who Gives the Next Breath?
Today’s parent suffers from anxiety and fear, the two biggest enemies which paralyzes a parent’s faith when their child is in crisis.
A child has run away. A daughter was just incarcerated. A son is laying in the hospital from an addiction. Crises continue to wreak havoc on parents in today’s world and these crises have no discrimination. While parents are trying to figure out their next step on how to deal with a child in crisis, layers of stress begin to build with anxiety and fear not too far behind.
What goes through a parent’s mind when their teen or young adult is in crisis?
- How will I get through this?
- I will probably find my child in a ditch or dead somewhere.
- How could my child do this to me and to themselves?
- I can’t take much more of this.
- Nothing has helped.
- Why hasn’t God healed my child?
- Doesn’t God care?
- How will we financially be able to get our child the support they need?
- Is God punishing us?
The list of questions can go on and on. In return, God is asking you, “Who gives the next heartbeat? Who gives the next breath?”
You see, God is the Author of life, your child’s life. He knew your son or daughter from the beginning of time and knows how their story will end. He is aware of everything. Nothing passes by God’s knowledge. In fact, He is with your child right now. As a parent, we may not see God in their midst because we are seeing instead the consequences of their destructive lifestyles. This does not stop God’s loving compassion towards your child or His plans for your child. Just know the Lord has not forgotten you or your child in crisis. He will give provision at the right time and with the right team of people to surround and support your son or daughter. I know He has for me.
So, while you wait on God, pray. The Lord uses your prayers to move others in the right place to minister to your child. He uses your prayers to set up the right circumstances for your child to get help. Your Heavenly Father uses your prayers to strengthen your faith and trust in Him. There is no need to fear or be anxious. GOD’S GOT THIS! Remember, He is the AUTHOR of LIFE and will act upon those prayers to bring your child back home into His fold. Keep praying. Keep the faith. Keep in His Word to be strengthened and uplifted.
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
PSALM 139: 1-18 NIV
Photo by nine koepfer on Unsplash