Check Your Emergency Contact

Proverbs 25:19: "Putting confidence in an unreliable person in times of trouble is like chewing with a broken tooth or walking on a lame foot." Today's Episode: Check Your Emergency Contact Everybody has an emergency contact. But the worst time to discover yours won't answer is during the emergency. Thirty-four years ago, D'Ann and I lost a baby through miscarriage. We named him Destin, and we trust we'll meet him in heaven. I was on the road ministering in California when D'Ann unexpectedly went into labor. I couldn't get there. Even now, that sentence hurts. But someone did get there. My grandmother, Armitris Manning, stayed with D'Ann through the labor, the loss and the grief that had to be picked up afterward. When we remember that chapter, we remember her presence inside it. Proverbs 25:19 says: "Putting confidence in an unreliable person in times of trouble is like chewing with a broken tooth or walking on a lame foot." That picture is exact. A broken tooth works until you bite down. A weak foot seems manageable until you put your weight on it. Trouble doesn't create reliability. It reveals it (or the lack thereof). Chaplaincy keeps teaching me the same lesson. When I enter a hospital room, I often find someone standing post—a spouse, relative, friend or nurse who cannot fix the crisis but refuses to leave the suffering person alone. Sometimes the miracle isn't that the pain disappears. Sometimes the miracle is that somebody stays. This proverb isn't permission to shame people who have limitations. Everybody cannot meet every need. But wisdom asks us to examine where we place the weight of our trust—and whether others can safely place theirs on us. Who answers when life calls after business hours? Who can "selflessly" sit with you without making your grief about them? And whose emergency contact are you? Armitris couldn't reverse what happened. She couldn't return Destin to our arms or remove D'Ann's pain. But when our family needed a trustworthy foot to stand on, she held the weight. That is what reliable love does. It shows up before it speaks. It stays after everybody else has gone. And when another person's world buckles, it says, "You can put some of that weight on me." Check your emergency contacts. Then check whether somebody can safely list you. Get full access to Hey Fred Lynch! at heyfredlynch.substack.com/subscribe