Who's Your Rock?
Sometimes the things I’m reading seem to enter into conversation with one another.
This week, my Bible study took me through the first two chapters of Daniel, while my book club reading, Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile, carried me into wartime Britain. Somewhere between ancient Babylon and Churchill’s England, my thoughts wandered to the Rock of Gibraltar.
An unexpected gathering for a week’s reflection, perhaps. Yet one question kept bringing them together: Where do we turn when the ground beneath us shifts?
Daniel found himself far from home, immersed in a culture he hadn’t chosen, serving under a king whose demands could cost him his life. What struck me was his resolve and the wisdom and restraint in how he responded. When faced with an impossible demand, he asked for time and gathered his friends to pray. When God revealed the answer, Daniel offered praise.
I lingered there. Before he had an answer, he had people with whom he could seek God. And when the answer came, he remembered whom to thank.
Reading about wartime Britain raises similar questions about living with uncertainty. How do people keep going when tomorrow carries so much they cannot control? How do they make room for ordinary life while extraordinary dangers loom?
My own worries belong to a very different world. Still, that longing for reassurance feels familiar.
My husband’s medical treatments haven’t gone as smoothly as we had hoped. We are facing more treatment, more waiting, and another surgery. Just when we thought we could look ahead to recovery, the path changed again.
I wish I could say my first response was peaceful trust. There has been disappointment, sadness, and worry about what lies ahead. As his wife and caregiver, I feel the weight of it, too. The waiting reaches into our plans and the everyday life we hoped to resume.
But in prayer, I have brought those feelings to God. Alongside my requests, I am finding reasons to praise Him; for the care available, the friends praying beside us, and the calm that has come even while our circumstances remain unsettled.
Daniel’s example feels especially meaningful here: seek God, invite others to pray, and remember to give thanks.
Of course, some of my prayers this week concerned considerably lighter matters.
A dear friend’s daughter is getting married, and after sharing so many years of raising our children together, I’m thrilled to celebrate this beautiful day. First, however, I needed something to wear.
Shopping and dressing for formal occasions are hardly my spiritual gifts.
So yes, I prayed for help finding the right dress. And with the patience and kindness of a few lovely shopkeepers—His helpers, I like to think—it all came together.
As I walked out the door, I immediately smiled and thanked Him. A happy little answer to prayer, and a reminder to notice the goodness tucked into an otherwise difficult week. There is still room for anticipation, celebration, and a little laughter in front of a dressing-room mirror.
Perhaps that is part of what I’m learning: I can bring all of it to Him. The worry over another surgery. The weariness of waiting. The joy of watching a friend’s daughter begin her married life.
And through it all, that image of Gibraltar stays with me. Solid. Steady. The familiar expression “solid as a rock” takes on deeper meaning when I think of God as my rock.
In Daniel 2, even the king’s imposing dream statue cannot stand forever. The kingdom God establishes will endure. What looks powerful today does not have the final word.
That is something I need to carry beyond the pages of my study.
We have a plan for the next steps, though we know it may change. Our surest foundation is God Himself. He walks beside us through every appointment, every difficult decision, and every day of waiting and into the celebrations along the way.
As this week draws to a close, Babylon, Britain, and Gibraltar leave me considering the same quiet truth.
I don’t know what the coming months will hold. But I know the Rock on whom I can rest.
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