“I love You, Lord, for Your mercy never fails me.
All my days I’ve been held in Your hand.”

This song was the first song I reached for after the most traumatic event of my motherhood to date.

“From the moment that I wake up until I lay my head,
I will sing of the goodness of God.”

This is not a song, but I do want to proclaim the goodness of God, even in a terrifying moment, and especially in a mercifully happy ending.

Last Wednesday morning, I thought I was losing my oldest son. I found him unresponsive on the couch. He wasn’t seeing, wasn’t hearing, wasn’t moving. Every mother’s worst nightmare.

I held him in my arms, and I was absolutely frantic. There aren’t words for that kind of terror.

Fear and shock and tears and begging Jesus to have mercy.

Every time I relive the details, it brings back the tears and heightens my anxiety about it all, so suffice it to say, Jesus did have mercy.

The ambulance came, and my husband was home to accompany Alec to the hospital, and within hours that same listless boy who had been so unbearably empty and heavy in my arms was talking the ear off the doctor who came to alleviate our fears and tell us his MRI and blood and urine tests had all come back clear. He had had a seizure, and we didn’t know why, but the tests that could have been devastating were not.

They were not.

Thank You, Jesus, they were not.

I made that drive to the hospital absolutely braced for the worst. Were we staring down a life turned upside down and inside out by brutal treatments and suffering no little boy should have to go through? I was so afraid we were.

And when that doctor walked in and said she brought nothing but good news, it was such a relief I about couldn’t bear it.

And I just want to proclaim the goodness of God. Even if the worst had come to pass, He would have still been good, because that is Who He is, but what a relief and what a marvel to experience His mercy, both for us but especially for our little boy.

“All my life You have been faithful.
All my life You have been so, so good.
With every breath that I am able,
I will sing of the goodness of God.”

Thank You, Jesus, for clean scans and for a healthy little boy. We can’t say thank You enough.

He is completely back to normal, running and jumping and wild, full of ideas and life and dreams and plans.

The second song I listened to after “The Goodness of God” was another favorite, “Bless God,” and the same thread of proclaiming the faithfulness of God was running through it.

“Blessed are those who run to Him,
Who place their hope and confidence in Jesus.
He won’t forsake them.
Blessed are those who seek His face,
Who bend their knee and fix their gaze on Jesus.
They won’t be shaken.
Come on and praise the Lord with me.
Sing if you love His name.
Come on and lift your voice with me.
He’s worthy of all our praise.”

Again the call to sing to the Lord.

This is my song. This is my lifting of my voice.

Come and praise Him with me.

What a merciful and mighty God we serve.

Alec is fine; his mother’s nerves are not. I have to fight the fear that it will happen again. I have to control my thoughts to not pause over that image of him laid out on the couch over and over again. I have to pray through my anxiety over the whole ordeal.

But our pastor said something profound on Sunday morning that was both convicting and comforting to me.

He was talking about how we don’t make God weighty enough, and he said something along these lines: “When you make God light, everything else becomes weighty. But when you make God weighty, everything else becomes lighter.”

And how true that is.

Oh, to fix my gaze on Jesus. What a comfort it is to know my children are in His hands.

I know some of you reading this are facing much harder things. Things that don’t come packaged with a happy little relief of an ending. I can’t imagine what you feel. I had only a small taste. My heart goes out to you in your grief, in your worry, in your pain, in your fears.

May you also find Him faithful.