In need of rescue.

I picked up the phone late one Sunday evening and heard, “Can you come get me?”

Beth, our youngest, lived in the mountains of North Carolina. We lived over two hours away, near Charlotte. She’d attended Appalachian State for a while, and decided to take some time off to work and consider her future. For many parents, that’s not a big deal. It shouldn’t have been for me, but I worried.

Beth is my little girl. Not only because I am her father, but she’s the petite one. The world is big. I knew she was on her own while in college, but those years were supposed to provide structure and sheltering as she matured. High school, college, then work. That’s the way it was supposed to go.

After she left school, she worked as a waitress, ski resort employee, pastry chef and group home worker. Her jobs required her to be there, meaning making those drives even farther up the mountain no matter the weather. I remember her describing a face-off with a man over a place to park at the end of the long gravel drive of one of her residences so she could be sure to get out on snowy mornings. She’d dug out the opening and she was going to park in it.

She made repairs to the homes she rented, using ingenuity borne of a limited budget. I am still amazed at the things she did and love telling those stories.

While attending Culinary School (where she received her first degree), she had the good fortune of participating in a golf resort’s summer internship program as a pastry chef. The resort provided staff lodging. After completing the internship, she had to find another place to live.

Her new apartment, a 306 square foot stand-alone building, consisted of two rooms with six-foot ceilings. Three rooms if you counted the bathroom, which you could touch from her bed, snugged against the wall as far away as possible. She called it her hobbit-house. Her rent included all utilities except heat—it had none. I’d installed a motion-detector light for one of her birthdays, all the while wishing she were not alone.

She never complained, never asked for help. Determined to work her way through it, to live in a region she loved, she kept at it. 

Communications weren’t always as frequent as I preferred and I remember driving to Boone on one occasion to talk with her about something we couldn’t seem to nail down over the phone. My way of checking the pulse of the whole situation. I drove home after that visit, convinced she had things as under control as could be.

She left the hobbit-house one Friday, turning off the small space heater, knowing she wouldn’t return from her job at the group home until Sunday.

Meanwhile, heavy snow and rain pounded the area. Her apartment, backing up to a hill, couldn’t withstand the forces of the water. Over the weekend, the apartment flooded. The water froze and was in the process of thawing again when she returned Sunday evening. Her bed linens wicked so much the top of her bed was wet. Her clothes, hanging on a department store rolling rack because there was no closet, soaked and partially frozen. Her possessions, ruined.

Then, the call. Her emotion-choked voice, from more than 100 miles away, “Can you come get me?”

“She’d had all she could take. She needed rescuing.”

Do you ever feel this way? You walk, chest out, head high, declaring, “I’ve got this.” All the while, bit by bit, you feel the weight of life. Maybe your health is failing you in some way. Maybe your financial situation screams at you every time you get a bill or think of something you need to buy. Or, it might be that you need to turn from a life apart from God and ask Him to rescue you.

It may not be any of those life-defining situations. You may just be tired. Life has placed the last straw onto that forty-pound bale of tedium you’ve been carrying around for a while now. You’ve had all you can take.

Consider King Darius’s words about God after He rescued Daniel from the lion’s den.

“He delivers and rescues and performs signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, Who has also delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.” (Daniel 6:27, New American Standard Bible)

No doubt, Daniel found himself in a dire situation. People were not thrown into the lion’s den so that they might enjoy time with one of God’s powerful creations. It would have been expected that the lions destroy Daniel. Why didn’t they?

The book of Daniel later tells us that once Daniel came out unharmed, his accusers were thrown into the den and before they touched the floor, the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.

The difference? Daniel trusted in God.

“So Daniel was taken up out of the den and no injury whatever was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.” (Daniel 6:23 NASB)

When I heard the words, “Can you come get me?”, there was no question in my mind. Of course, we’ll come get you. After much consoling and discussion, we had a plan. My wife and I rented a truck as soon as possible the next morning and headed up the mountain.

As much as I loved her, wanted the best for her, and was willing to run to the rescue, God loves us more. His best surpasses our best. His abilities outweigh ours. He is able to rescue when we cannot.

God “…delivers and rescues and performs signs and wonders.”

Trust God when you need a rescue. I’d love to hear of a time when you did.