That Call

 A few nights ago, I got THAT call. You know, the one that comes in the middle of the night, the one that is just not quite right. The one that never bears anything but pain. The one that often becomes the exposition of our worst nightmare…come true.

“Courtney, there’s been an accident.” I hear echo through the speaker plastered to my ear.

My mind is automatically jumping from scenario to scenario, worst case of course. Just a fight mechanism, I perceive, to lighten the impact of the words that are inevitably coming. To ensure it doesn’t sound that bad, in comparison at least…

Well, you’re talking to your mom, so at least she is okay. Is it one of the dogs? How bad could it be?

“What happened mom?” I cry, in an utter desperation to numb the nawing churn as my stomach already begins to take its first summersault. Just tell me, I think. Whatever it is, it will be okay. Really, I’ve been waiting for this moment. Just tell me.

“Courtney, this isn’t your mom.” The voice on the other end strikes back. My heart slips into my chest, quickly, painlessly. Then the utter helplessness invades. The urgency of knowing in conflict with the dread of how that knowledge would turn my world up-side-down.

When my phone rang at 11:30pm, I thought it was a little weird my mom was calling so late. After all, marriage had greatly tamed her previously outlandish lifestyle. Usually she was safely tucked into her bed by promptly 10pm.

Despite the odd timing, when my phone read, incoming call from mom, I never expected it to be anyone but her. I mean, she was always there, always that loud, beautiful, nagging voice on the other end.

“Courtney, this is Missy, your mom’s friend from work.” Since when does she work with someone named Missy? No, I rationalize in my head. I don’t know you. I have never heard your name. You don’t know anything about my mom. Who do you think you are? My inability to see, to control, to know feeds the desperation, the anger, the panic.


“Courtney, your mom has been in a car accident.” My heart drops into my chest. The churning in my stomach speeds up four times over. My mind floods with thoughts, images, questions, pleas. But nothing. Nothing comes out of my mouth.

I try again, but the words forgot how to form. My voice, suddenly lost. I take a few steps forward, leaning some of my weight on the dresser, unsure of how to brace myself for what is to come.

I listen to the frantic voice on the other end, but I don’t hear many of the words spoken to me. At some point, I collapse in a chair at the dining table. My body sinks into it. My mind needed all of its capacity simply to process the single most painful sentence uttered to my ears. Oh how it pierced my ear drums.

“Courtney, your mom was in a car accident.” It plays over and over and over again with gnawing agony. As if someone pressed the replay button in my head. I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to run. I want to hide. I want to disintegrate into this plump red cushion which lends support to my limp flesh. I want to stand, but I cannot. I feel like jelly. Get me away from this feeling! I scream inside. Make it stop. Oh please, Lord, make it stop.

The pleas and promises and negotiations begin.


This feeling of everything being completely out of my control resonates deeper by the second. How could everything I thought I once knew certain, suddenly become so uncertain? How quickly life could shatter before my very eyes. How everything could change in the single second it took me to take a breath in and exhale out. The preciousness of a life.

But then, much like a movie, before the words even became utterable, before the pain seared through to touch the core, I see some words. Like a screen, right in front of me. And across it flow steadily some words. And yet, these are not just any words.

These words have been engraved upon my heart, etched into the corners and crevasses of who I am. The Words of Jesus. I see them play before me on this movie screen, streaming past letter by letter, slowly making a sentence, then another, and another.

“LORD, first let me go and bury my father.”
Jesus: “Let the dead bury their own dead, but YOU go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”
“I will follow you LORD, but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”
Jesus: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God.” -Luke 9:57-62

As I simmer in the unfathomable panic and invasive pain, I wonder…Is Jesus really enough?

Have I truly counted the cost?

Do I understand what these words mean?

Do I believe it enough to live it out?

In this dark moment of my life, will my life measure up to the call of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

My mom was pretty beat up from the accident but is now safe and sound, resting at home. She is still in some pain from the injuries to her chest, leg, and face but praise God it was not worse. I write this more so to share the painful battle of coming to that point of total surrender to Christ. I needed this time to really wrestle it out in my thoughts…to confess before my readers and my Father that HE REALLY IS ENOUGH FOR ME. To challenge and encourage, to question and provoke the reality each of us is faced with in coming to terms with what we truly believe and how that is displayed in our lives. I don’t have all the answers…I’m on this journey too, just wrestling through it. My heart is overflowing with love for the only One who gives me life, abundant life.