We had been talking about taking a vacation: travel vouchers and public transportation schedules, skyscrapers and Chinatown, museums, ice-skating, a trip through the city during late winter.

Then, attentions shifted.

At first there was only breath—a small wisp hovering just above the ground, vapors expanding and retracting with each hesitant inhalation. The movement, a whisper of recognition, was unsteady and shallow. Dusk settled over the highway, lights flickering on slowly. Cars inched past on either side, the rubber of the tires trailing after the sirens.

The man lay immobilized on a stretcher in the middle of a busy cross street, cops diverting traffic on either side. Empty stare, ashen face, thin gray lips. The responsible party (another man, mid-fifties, stocky with bushy eyebrows and a slight paunch) stood off to the side, answering questions from an officer. Flares marked the median, as candles lined the aisles of a cathedral.

Denise turned to me, her checks sallow and eyes wide, her words stopping mid-sentence. My hands gripped the steering wheel, uncommonly translucent. All I could focus on was that shallow breath, drifting away on the still night air. We didn’t have time to reflect, my foot easing off the brake as the cars moved forward at a more steady pace.

The doors of the ambulance swung shut and drove off.

It doesn’t always take moments like this to remind us of the frailty of life. Disappointments, fractured relationships, emotional barriers, and apathy- we live in the daily reality of a broken world. But we have hope for the future in the only living God. Psalm 34:18 states that “the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” It’s encouraging to know that our Lord draws near in times of spiritual and emotional bankruptcy. Not only that, but that He promises to heal us from the inside out, to bring us back to life when there doesn’t seem to be any hope of a recovery.

There are those experiences that shock us into change, into living again: car accidents and heart-breaking failures that drive us to achieve something more. But there are also those other moments, those that magnify God’s still, quiet voice. How strange to me that such an awesome, powerful God speaks in whispers! Sometimes I can hear it before I go to sleep at night. And all I can think is, “Thank you.”