A speaker I heard told this story: As young children, he and his brother were playing by a lake. His brother fell into the water, and not knowing yet how to swim, began flailing about in a drowner’s panic. This boy, too, became hysterical as he looked on, too small to rescue his brother. Feeling utterly helpless, he did the only thing he could do—he began screaming for his mother, who arrived instantly and pulled the terrified child from the water.

There have many times in our journey with our now-adult son we have watched him churning and twisting in chaos, while we stood by frozen in our own confusion, fully aware of our impotence. Like the brother in the story, all we could do is to cry out for one greater than ourselves to come to the rescue.

Once when we received a call that Douglas was, yet again, in the grip of mania, I cried out to God for rescue, as usual. However, this particular time I also prayed that somehow God would receive glory from this horrid situation. The next day I came upon Psalm 50:15, and through it, He reassured me in a surprising way. Not only would He answer my prayer for rescue (which He did, yet again), but He had already answered my prayer for His glory. The verse tells us that the very act of turning to God in our crises brings Him glory. Before the deliverance comes, before the situation is resolved, before we know how it will all turn out, His glory shines through the faith that trusts Him to be the savior.

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