Flashback

But God will restore, cleanse, guide, and shelter

Isaiah 4:5-6 Then the Lord will provide a canopy of cloud during the day and smoke and flaming fire at night, covering the glorious land. It will be a shelter from daytime heat and a hiding place from storms and rain.

Psalm 31: 19-20, 32:7 How great is the goodness you have stored up for those who fear you. You lavish it on those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world. You hide them in the shelter of your presence, safe from those who conspire against them. You shelter them in your presence, far from accusing tongues … You are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory.

Whenever I see or hear the words “hiding place,” I flash back to a Saturday night Karis “should” have died. She was sixteen; I was with her at the hospital in São Paulo. Her eleven-year-old sister Valerie, home alone working on a project for school, sang “You are my hiding place … I will trust in you” over and over and over, afraid for Karis’s life.

Teen Karis with her sisters at Ibirapuera Park in São Paulo, sharing two pairs of rollerblades between the three of them

Meanwhile, the teens of our church were engaged with their regular weekly meeting. Suddenly one of them said, “We need to pray for Karis.” They didn’t even know she was in the hospital, but the entire group knelt and prayed for her until around midnight they sensed release from God. They only learned the next morning that at the time they felt compelled to pray, Karis’s fever had spiked beyond what the thermometer could measure, and she had managed to say “Goodbye, Mommy,” before passing out. Her doctor was struggling to reach the hospital through São Paulo traffic. Her nurse, too terrified to act, left it up to me to pack Karis in ice and, with the help of another nurse and an orderly holding her down—Karis was shaking uncontrollably—give her the injection the doctor had ordered before he jumped in his car. He repeated the injection, along with other emergency measures, the moment he arrived in her room, running full tilt up the stairs and through the hallways.

“Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you.”

Isaiah too was afraid, of the judgment and stripping and violence he knew was coming (chapter three). He flashed back to the Exodus, when God had led his people escaping from slavery in Egypt with a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13-14). These stories were part of the people of Israel’s identity, told and retold through the centuries to illustrate God’s care and protection when they were weak and vulnerable.

Have you experienced God as your hiding place? I would love to hear your story.