Psalm 34 is an anthem for the crestfallen, a song for poor souls. With poetic power, the psalm recounts a low point in the author’s life, a time of severe fear (v. 4). Dwelling deep in a dark chasm of anguish, this individual implored God to rescue him. Perhaps you too know this place of pain. Most of us have, at one time or another, been cast into similar chasms.
Six years ago tragedy struck our family. As anyone acquainted with tragedy can say, “I remember it like it was yesterday…”
My then three-year-old son, Cullen, fell and hit his head on the gymnasium floor at his preschool. My wife, Jamie, was in the gym when the fall occurred, though she didn’t see exactly what happened, nor did any other adult who was present. Cullen’s mouth was bleeding, and he was crying, but Jamie was able to calm him, and he sat quietly in her lap for the next hour or so.
Things appeared to be getting back to normal–no harm done–when suddenly Cullen started coughing and vomiting. A few moments later, he lost all sense of balance and the entire right side of his face went limp. Overcome with fear, Jamie rushed Cullen to the nearest hospital, and I met them there. Within the next few hours Cullen vomited several more times. He appeared very tired and we began to notice increased swelling in the right side of his face, the side he told us he had fallen on earlier that morning. The hospital staff did a CT scan. They found nothing disconcerting, but the doctor recommended a consultation with the pediatric team at a nearby medical center. The last words this doctor spoke to us were encouraging ones, so we headed by ambulance to the neighboring children’s hospital, hopes high.
Upon our arrival at the second hospital we met with the general pediatrics team and the neurology team, and straightaway both expressed concern for Cullen. “Cullen’s symptoms are not the symptoms generally associated with a concussion. We’re worried that something more might be going on here,” they told us. By this time, Cullen could not move his eyes to the right, and he could not stand to his feet. The medical staff did another CT scan, but again the scan showed nothing problematic. Puzzled by Cullen’s condition, the doctors asked us to stay the night, with the plan of doing an MRI the next morning. So Jamie and I sought the Lord all night long.
The next day brought despair. Cullen did fine in the “bear cave,” as we called the MRI, and as he rested in the hospital bed I stepped out for a cup of coffee. I returned to our room to find a neurosurgeon talking to Jamie. She was crying. The MRI revealed that Cullen had suffered a stroke. “Are you sure?” I asked. “He’s three years old! How can a three-year-old boy have a stroke?” We met later with the neurology team; they confirmed the news. Indubitably, our little boy had suffered a stroke in his pons, the message station of the brain. The pons contains nuclei that deal with equilibrium, eye movement, facial expressions, and posture. This fit with what we had been seeing in Cullen. The general pediatrics team came by later to tell us that we would be staying in the hospital one more night. Our tears were our food that evening.
The neurology team paid us a visit the following morning. They couldn’t tell us the cause of Cullen’s stroke, nor could they tell us if the stroke was related to the head trauma. In short, they told us that Cullen is a medical mystery. “It’s kids like you,” the chief neurologist said to Cullen, “that keep us doctors humble.” The better news was that everyone seemed optimistic about Cullen’s recovery. The portion of his pons that was not getting the blood it required to function properly is no longer operational. There is no “reviving” this section of the brain. But, as the neurologists explained, what often occurs in that very small number of children who have strokes is that the brain “rewires” itself, so that other parts pick up the slack caused by the part that is no longer functioning. “If this happens with Cullen,” the neurology team told us, “eventually he will get back to normal.”
Within a few months of the stroke, Cullen had recovered fully. It’s mind-blowing how drastically the human body can change in a matter of weeks. The day of the stroke, Cullen couldn’t get out of bed, much less stand to his feet to walk. Just weeks later, he was running full speed. We are grateful to our sovereign God for his healing touch. Indeed, it is as if the psalmist dips his pen in our hearts when he writes, “This poor soul cried, and was heard by the LORD, and was saved from every trouble” (v. 6). But I must confess that I have not always identified with the author of our psalm. There were moments when I preferred the words of Ps 42:9 (“Why have you forgotten me?”) over those of Ps 34:1 (“I will bless the LORD at all times”). There were hours when God seemed absent. But he wasn’t absent; we were just unaware of his presence. Like Aslan in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, before Lucy finds the proper spell in the magician’s book, God was invisible to us. We couldn’t see anything rightly when our eyes were blurred with tears.
We see more clearly now, but we still do not have all the answers. We may not ever (at least in this life) find out what exactly happened to our son on that horrifying morning. And we have no guarantee that our future will be free of similar horrors. Whatever happens, we take comfort in the fact that God rescues his people (v. 19). The rescue spoken of in Ps 34 is not exemption from trouble. The righteous will suffer “many afflictions” (v. 19). The rescue celebrated in our psalm must also be understood in the context of other passages of Scripture that clearly speak of extended seasons of suffering. Sometimes God makes haste to help us in our afflictions. Other times, for reasons we cannot fully understand, he does not. The Apostle Paul prayed repeatedly for deliverance from his “thorn,” but God in his infinite wisdom decided to leave Paul pierced. Christianity is not a reggae religion; our motto is not, “Every little thing is gonna be alright.” Rather, our comfort is that, in Christ, God has come to us, and “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39). Because Christ tasted death for us (Heb 2:9), reconciling us to God, we now experience God’s abiding presence within our afflictions. Though life assails us with its various bitter bits, Christ has awakened our palates to taste the goodness of God (v. 8). Thus, his praise shall continually be in our mouths (v. 2).
Dillon Thornton is a gospel-centered, dechurched- and unchurched-loving, mission-leading pastor with over two decades of diverse ministry experience. He serves as the Lead Pastor of Faith Community Church in Seminole, FL. In his spare time, Dillon drinks Joffrey’s coffee, coaches CrossFit and CrossFit Kids, and reads C.S. Lewis. His latest book is Give Them Jesus, published by Hachette.
