The 2 A.M. Call

At 2:14 on a Tuesday morning, David Marsh's phone buzzed on the nightstand in his apartment in Columbus, Ohio. Half-asleep, he silenced it — probably a robocall. Four minutes later, it buzzed again. He flipped it face-down. When it rang a third time, his wife Ellen sat up and said, "David, answer it. Someone is trying to reach you."

It was St. Ann's Hospital. His mother had fallen and broken her hip. She was frightened and asking for him by name.

David drove thirty minutes through empty streets, replaying those dismissed rings in his head. His mother had been calling out for him, and three times he had pushed her away, certain he already knew what the sound meant.

In the temple at Shiloh, young Samuel heard his name called three times in the darkness. Each time he ran to Eli, sure of the source. It took the old priest — weary, half-blind, but still wise enough to recognize what Samuel could not — to say, "It is the Lord."

Samuel's gift was not supernatural hearing. It was the willingness, once guided, to stop assuming and start listening. "Speak, Lord," he said, "for your servant is listening." The call had been there all along. He simply needed someone to help him recognize whose voice it was — and the humility to finally pick up.