When I was 15, I was involved in a pretty decent motorcycle crash.  While I was in the hospital, I memorized Psalm 46, or at least most of it. And I repeated the first verse over and over and over during the months and years of healing that followed.

The Lord is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. The Lord is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. The Lord is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Over the many years since, I have repeated that scripture over and over and over, when I couldn’t form any original thoughts, words, or prayer, when desperation set in and I felt like life was spiraling or life was in a vacuum.

Today, I am grateful for that brown leather bible that I held onto in that hospital bed, I am grateful for the random/not-random-at-all thumbing through to find something, anything that might give me peace, and I am grateful for God’s divine direction that led me to Psalm 46:1.

I am grateful that even now, in moments of anxiety, He gives so much scripture of reassurance.

Quite simply…a hug in words.