Post: 1,448
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. – Psalm 139:7-8
On January 12, 2010, millions of people in Haiti experienced the severe shaking of the catastrophic 7.0 earthquake, and with one voice millions called out to God for salvation and rescue and comfort as their world fell apart. In the hours following the quake, thousands found themselves trapped under rubble, and had to “make their beds in the depths” that night as they hoped for rescue. On assignment in Port-au-Prince that day with Compassion International, I was one of those trapped in the rubble.
As I lay in the darkness under the collapsed Hotel Montana, I cried out to God, asking Him to be present with me, to sustain my life, and to comfort me. And in that place of extreme darkness and destruction, I experienced God’s presence like I never had before. God did not abandon me in my time of crisis. The darkness and the pancaked stories of concrete did not prevent Him from ministering to me. And God used Psalm 139 to encourage me, reminding me that He was not taken by surprise by this earthquake–that even this day was written in HIs book before I was born. Reminding me that I could trust Him.
Feeling God’s presence and having a reminder that He had sovereign control over my wellbeing, in life or in death, sustained me through my 65 hour ordeal until I was rescued. And as I talk with Haitian survivors of the earthquake, though so many stories are fraught with heartache, I regularly hear accounts of how God’s presence sustained them through their trial.
If you are suffering today, if you’re facing some kind of darkness in your life, call out to God for His comfort and sustaining presence. He loves you!
Today’s commentary by Dan Woolley.
Read the full story of Dan Woolley’s earthquake survival story and his encounter with God in his book, Unshaken: Rising from the Ruins of Haiti’s Hotel Montana. Learn more at http://DanWoolley.net.
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