Encountering the God of Rescue

When I was a child and things were chaotic at home, I used to hide in my closet and pray. Even then, from a very young age, I sensed God’s protective presence by my side, pressed all around me, holding me close.

I’ll be forever grateful for the introduction to Jesus I gained in my childhood. But, as I grew older, I began to recognize something else—a use of control mixed with religion that sometimes hurt and terrified me. So, when I was 18, I went to college happy to be away from God, relieved to be free from the judgment and punishments I’d been told were required to grow me. I decided that if I was going to make it on my own, I needed to start believing in myself. That meant leaving God behind.

But my new freedom gave me a chance to remember the childhood moments when I’d felt God with me in ways I couldn’t explain away. I reasoned that if God was real, God was surely big enough to hear my questions. So, I began speaking my pain aloud as prayer and feeling a growing sense of peace and calm. I still couldn’t bring myself to believe in God, but I started to wonder if God might believe in me.

The presence I felt was not an angry deity lording over me, but rather love made known in the person of Jesus—someone who paid attention to women and children and had a particular heart for the broken.

In Psalm 18, the psalmist writes,

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge...

In my distress I called to the Lord;
I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice;
my cry came before him, into his ears.
The earth trembled and quaked,
and the foundations of the mountains shook...

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
he drew me out of deep waters;
He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.

This powerful psalm confirms and echoes what child development science is discovering about how healthy, secure parents watch over and protect their children. They listen to their cries, pay attention to their pain, and, when children are most vulnerable and in need, loving parents swoop in to save them. Not because their children haven’t made mistakes, but because they see their children with love and delight, even on hard days.

By the end of my first year at college, I'd reembraced my faith. In the years since, I've experienced how God’s protection doesn’t come with shame, fear, or punishment. Instead, when things are hard, the Spirit draws near like a loving parent who longs to see a beloved child dwell in peace.

Question for Reflection:

If you or your loved ones are facing a difficult situation today, God is with you—even if whatever you’re experiencing makes you want to hide. No matter how small, afraid, or ashamed you may feel, will you trust that your situation is important in God’s eyes? Could you, like the psalmist, believe that God loves you enough to draw you out of whatever deep waters you're experiencing and lead you into a spacious place?

Amy Olrick’s work and writing have been featured in the Guardian, USA Today, and ChristianParenting.com. She and her husband, Dr. Jeffrey Olrick, are co-authors of the book, The 6 Needs of Every Child: Empowering Parents & Kids through the Science of Connection and share parenting resources at GrowingConnected.com