Sitting outside Jasmine’s hospital room early Monday morning I waited for the text from Christine that says, “We are awake. Breakfast?” That is the cue for me to go to the cafeteria and order “The Albertan” for Christine and a pancake for Jasmine.
But it had been several days since Jasmine had eaten anything at all. She wasn’t drinking much either so everything was being administered through her IV. Frankly, She had been through a week of intense suffering and the day before, Sunday, had been the worst.
When I left them Sunday night I was so broken-hearted I thought my chest would explode. Watching that precious girl battling strep and pneumonia without the benefit of any white blood cells was horrific. I lost count of the number of IV bags and needles as the medical staff tried to stop her plummeting blood pressure, reduce the fever, dull the pain and fight the infections.
Monday morning I was emotionally raw.
I opened my Bible as I waited and looked to Psalm 91 where God had met me in other crises. I found nothing. So I turned to the traditional favourite, Psalm 23. Nothing.
So I began to leaf forward, looking for anything previously underlined. My eyes fell on some green lines beneath these words in Psalm 27:
Wait for the Lord: be courageous and let your heart be strong. Wait for the Lord.
It grabbed my attention. No one likes waiting but it’s bearable when the outcome we await is good news. So I read it again and then noticed the words just above and found the promise I desperately needed in verse 13:
I am certain that I will see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living.
After all the suffering I had witnessed in the previous days, this was good news. I clung to this promise 
and, lacking note paper, I removed the cardboard thingy (I lost my nouns years ago) from my coffee cup and wrote it out.
Moments later I got the text. I stepped into the hospital room and could see instantly that Jasmine, while still very sick, had turned a corner and was headed back toward the “land of the living.”
This does not happen to me often but at key moments during my life God has met me through His Word and given me promises moments before life confirms their truth. He knows. He cares.
Hope for the Rest of Us 