Psalms 121

Psalm 121

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.

 1 I look up to the mountains—

      does my help come from there?

 2 My help comes from the Lord,

      who made heaven and earth!

 3 He will not let you stumble;

      the one who watches over you will not slumber.

 4 Indeed, he who watches over Israel

      never slumbers or sleeps.

 5 The Lord himself watches over you!

      The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade.

 6 The sun will not harm you by day,

      nor the moon at night.

 7 The Lord keeps you from all harm

      and watches over your life.

 8 The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go,

      both now and forever.

This is a Psalm that all Christians are familiar with. It's one of those psalms we are taught in Sunday schools and at homes, to memorize, next to Psalms 23. I remember my parents and my grandparents would read it and pray over us prior to going to take school exams, travelling, job interviews, etc. I have continued that practice and quite often when struggling with issues in life, this Psalm has been a source of comfort.

Recently one night, February 12th, as I was sitting praying and meditating on this Psalm, it started opening up in a way that I had never understood it previously. Verses 1 & 2 when compared to the rest of the chapter, the pronouns caught my attention. The Holy Spirit bracketed out that it went from "My & Lord" to "He & you."  It appeared to be a Psalm written by some one as a testimony of what God had done in their life for others to know and draw strength from.

Verses 1 & 2,

" I look up to the mountains - does my help come from there? My help comes from the LORD, who made the heavens and the earth!"

This was a confident declaration by someone who knew of God's mercy and goodness from firsthand specific experiences in his/her life.

As I read vs. 3,

"He will not let you stumble and fall; the one who watches over you will not sleep."

the thought that came to mind (from God's Holy Spirit) was, "ask any one of the folks named in Hebrews chapter 11, if this is true, and they will unanimously say, "Yes indeed!" Ask, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, David, Samuel, and they will all attest to the truth in that verse."

As I read vs. 4,

"Indeed, he who watches over Israel never tires and never sleeps."

the thought came, "ask Moses who led the people of Israel for 40 years through the desert and he will tell you that, I their God, never got tired of my people's grumbling, and never slept as I led them! I went ahead of them in a pillar of fire at night and a cloud cover during the daytime."

As I read vs. 5 & 6,

"The LORD himself watches over you! the LORD stands beside you as your protective shade. The sun will not hurt you by day, nor the moon at night."

the thought came, "ask David and he will remind you that it is indeed true. From the time he was a little boy watching after his father's sheep and after I anointed him as the next king of Judah and Israel, there had been many attempts on his life by wild animals and men. Not once have I had his enemies be victorious over him. David will indeed tell you that there were many a days and nights that he had ran from Saul's burning jealousy, slept in the open wilderness, but I did not let the sun hurt him during the day nor the moon at night."

As I read vs. 7,

"The LORD keeps you from all evil and preserve your life."

the thought came, "ask Mordecai and he will tell you how I sprang into action the night before he was to be hung and rescued him from Haman's gallow. (Esther 5:14-Esther 6:3) Ask Daniel, ask Shadrach, Mesech and Abednego, how I saved their lives from their enemies evil plans for their destruction. They will tell you "Yes indeed our LORD kept us from all evil and preserved our lives."

As I read vs. 8,

"The LORD keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever."

the thought came, "ask Joshua and he will tell you that as he approached the city of Jericho, he met the commander of my army standing with his sword drawn in hand who asked that Joshua take off his sandals as he was standing on holy ground. Why do you think the ground he was standing on was holy? My presence went ahead of Joshua and my people to fight their battles."

Halleluiah, this chapter of the Psalms does not have an author such as "David, Asaph, Korah, or sons of Korah, etc." This could be your testimony, my testimony to our children, our brothers and sisters, our neighbors. As they face challenges in their lives, let it be our testimony, "my God will help you; my God will not let you stumble and fall; my God will not tire nor sleep as he watches over you; my God will stand beside you in your struggles; my God will not let any harm come over you; my God will keep you from all evil; my God will preserve your life; my God will fight your battles and lead you victoriously.

God bless you!

Matisyahu - King without a crown

I will not die, but I will live to tell what the LORD has done...Psalms 118:17

The following is from my journal entry dated August 24, 2008...

It was June 2008. I was changing jobs within the same company, and was on vacation for a week, June 23-29, 2008. During this week of vacation I had decided to fast and pray for God's favor before starting the new job.

I started my first day of fasting and prayer on June 23rd. That night I went to sleep as usual.  Had an uneventful, peaceful sleep.  The next morning June 24th when I woke up, I realized that something was off with my vision.  As I lay in bed, I closed each eye and looked at the wall clock, and around the room.  I realized that I couldn't see properly from my left eye. In fact, when I looked through my left eye, sections of objects were greyed out.  It was the weirdest and most unnerving experience of my life.  I woke my wife up and told her about this.  She thought my blood glucose level may have been low and immediately checked it.  The blood glucose level was 107 or 108... just about normal!  She proceeded to make me breakfast thinking that may help. After a good breakfast, she checked my blood glucose level again.  And now it was in the 200's.

As the day proceeded towards afternoon, against our hope, my vision did not get better.  I would say my left eye's vision was 70-80% gone.  The best way I described it at the time was as if looking through a mud splattered window pane.  I could see clearly through the spaces that were not mud splattered. The objects were not distorted, but they looked like part of a jigsaw puzzle with many missing pieces.  I had also started feeling numbness in my left temple.  At this point I realized that something was seriously wrong, but I didn't tell my wife about the numbness.  In my mind various scenarios were running by.  I knew I was in trouble, but didn't know how much trouble.  I thought of the possibility that I may not make it through that day.  I had been sitting on the sofa in our dining room.  My wife seeing that I had become very quiet and withdrawn came close to me and put her arms around me.  She squeezed me gently.  At this point I couldn't hold myself together and started sobbing. I cried like a baby!  She squeezed me tighter and herself started crying.  Then she fell to her knees and holding me started praying.  As she prayed through her tears, I felt the power in her prayer and we prayed together. Mentally, I prepared myself for whatever outcome I was going to face - blindness, stroke or worse.  All the while I don't know why or how, in my heart I thanked the Lord for having given me the ability to see for the past 40 years, see and enjoy his wonderful creations. Above all I thanked him for my parents and siblings and their families; for having given me the opportunity to see my wife and children and enjoy my life with them.  I thanked him for each individually.  I asked the Lord to heal me or to give me the strength to deal with whatever outcome I was going to face.  God gave me peace.

After my wife finished praying, we called our friend who's a cardiologist.  We explained to him the situation and he urged me to go immediately to the nearby hospital emergency room.  We then called my brother and his wife and informed them what was going on.  They agreed to meet us at my sister's house. I drove to my sister's house (realized what a mistake to have driven as my vision on the left side was very poor and couldn't see the car's left rear view mirror).  We dropped off our children with my parents at my sister's house and continued on to the emergency room with my wife and sister-in-law.  My sis-in-law drove this time.

All the while I was thinking that I was either having a stroke or going to have one.  As we were speaking to the ER nurse who was taking down the medical information, I started feeling numbness in my right temple.  Very shortly, I was wheeled in and sent for a cat scan. The results from that came normal, nothing wrong with my head.  The doctors and neurologists who looked me over were puzzled by my symptoms. I had 20/20 vision in the left eye, whatever portions of it where the vision wasn't greyed out.  Later an ophthalmologist examined my eyes and found that there was hemorrhaging in my left eye.  He diagnosed it as Central Retinal Vein Occlusion (CRVO).  The good thing was, he said, that there was no retina dislocation which is typical with CRVO and that would have required immediate surgery.  His prognosis was that it would take several months at best to regain my vision as the blood had to be absorbed by the body, a slow process, but no guarantees.  He said that most likely there will be long lasting damage to the retina from the blood resulting in impaired vision.  There was nothing to be done that evening and I was asked to go see my regular ophthalmologist the next day.

While I was in the hospital emergency room, my children had gone to church for the Tuesday night service and they requested the church to pray for their daddy.  The same evening following the church service, our pastor came to visit me at my sister's home where I was following my release from the hospital. He placed his hand on my eye and prayed for me calling on God's promises for his children. Again, as when my wife prayed for me, I felt power in his prayer. I knew God was in charge of my life and my family, no matter what the outcome.  Again, all through my ordeal, I experienced peace within myself.

Next morning I woke up around 5 am and to my amazement I could see so much better from my left eye.  The overnight improvement in my vision was just phenomenal. I could see colors where I saw grey the day before.  Early that morning we went to see my regular ophthalmologist. After checking my eyes through his equipment, he also agreed with the emergency room doctor's diagnosis of CRVO with no retina dislocation, but he couldn't understand how my vision had improved overnight as there still was a lot of blood on the retina.  He told me that I was very fortunate to be able to see out of my left eye.  In his 25+ years of practice he knew of only one another patient who had such a speedy recovery.  I replied that I was very happy to hear what he had to say. To which he responded he would be too if he didn't lose his vision.  I told him that my reason for being happy was that listening to his wonderment just proved to me that there really was a God. Because between the incident, my visit to the emergency room and the next day of recovery, the only thing that was done for my recovery was prayer.  He sort of chuckled and said that he was an atheist.  My wish for him was that by the time he was finished with me he will also believe in Jehovah, God.

From there he proceeded to call a retina specialist that he knew and got me an appointment with him right away for the same day so that things wouldn't get any worse.  I went to the retina specialist's office straight from my ophthalmologist's office. He performed an angiogram and for the first time I saw on a computer screen what the inside of my eye looked like.  We could see that the vein in my left eye had bled.  It was thick and crooked unlike the one in the other eye; saw the splatter of blood droplets on the back of my left eye (the magnitude of which was not visible fully from the front white of my eye).   I thought it looked like the planetary system.

The retina specialist, as the other doctors, was impressed at my overnight improvements in vision following the vein occlusion.  The blood was still there.  The good thing was that the vein had stopped bleeding.  He too was amazed that I was able to see through that eye.  He told us that typically he would right away schedule surgery, but since I wasn't complaining of any discomfort and was able to see, he was going to put me on medication to relieve the pressure on the eye and continue to monitor the eye for the next several weeks.  A surgery was not required and within couple of weeks of this incident my eye recovered completely and I was back to work.

When I think back, it is by the grace of God that I see today from both my eyes.  As a little child, I had an accident and should have lost my right eye. I had fallen face first in to a cactus bush.  One of its thorn had pierced and broken off in my right eye.  It required multiple surgeries and my dad's persistence to convince the surgeons to take a closer look when they had ruled out the presence of any foreign object in my eye. There were many who kept me in their prayers during these days to whom I owe much. God has done good for me!

Psalms 118:17 - I will not die, but I will live to tell what the LORD has done.

Third Day - I need a miracle