Help From The Sanctuary

Psalm 20

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you! May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion! May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices!

May he grant you your hearts desire and fulfill all your plans! May we shout for joy over your salvation, and in the name of our God set up our banners! May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!

Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.

O Lord, save the king! May he answer us when we call.

Psalm 20 was part of my daily Bible reading plan this past week and when I read it my heart instantly cried out on behalf of a dear friend. It is good to share our burdens with one another and I have been thankful to be able to pray for others, some who walk a similar journey with us. I poured over the verses of this psalm as a prayer for my friend, committing each situation in her life to God, rejoicing in her salvation, and trusting Him for His daily sufficiency and His eternal victory in her life. It was a precious time of prayer on behalf of this friend. It was good to be rooted in the Word.

I did not know that later that same day storm winds would blow through my own home, threatening to uproot my own heart. I did not know that one of my precious children would hurt so much they would express it again and again in overwhelming ways. I did not know that it would last for days. God was good to prepare me earlier that morning with prayers for a friend that I would later need to pray for myself and my hurting child.

It is an agonizing experience to hold your precious child who is tormented by the past and by fear, full of rage and anger, and to be the misguided target of all of that emotion. As a mother, it is terrible.

It is a beautiful thing to know the peace of Christ in the midst of such circumstances, to know we have help from the sanctuary when we cry out. It is sweet to know we have support from Zion. Even in the midst of having our lives threatened and our earthly dreams crushed, we are able to rejoice and shout for joy in our salvation and in the name of our God. We are able because we know that the Lord saves his anointed and answers from heaven with saving might. While others trust in many things that will fail over time, we trust in the name of the Lord our God. After several days of storms we have been able to rise and stand upright, trusting God to be our sufficiency.

These beautifully painful storms raging in my children's hearts and in our home have not ended, but they have caused me to remain depended on my Heavenly Father who is sovereign in all things. I am learning to love and trust Him more every day.