The Incubator at 24 Weeks

When Elise Thornton went into labor at just twenty-four weeks, the doctors at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville already had a plan. Before her son even drew his first breath, a team of neonatal specialists had prepared a microenvironment in the NICU — temperature calibrated to the degree, humidity set to protect paper-thin skin, a ventilator ready to breathe for lungs barely formed. Danger surrounded that one-pound boy on every side. His body was not yet equipped for the world he had entered. But the place prepared for him held what the outside world could not: warmth, oxygen, protection, and the steady vigilance of people who would not leave him.

In Revelation 12, John witnesses a cosmic drama — a woman clothed with the sun, laboring to bring forth life while a great dragon waits to devour her child. The imagery is staggering in its danger. Yet the child is caught up to God, and the woman flees to a wilderness place that the Almighty has already prepared for her. Not a place she had to find, earn, or build — a place made ready before the crisis arrived.

This is the character of God. The Most High does not scramble in response to evil. He prepares refuge in advance of the threat. Before the dragon opens its mouth, the shelter is already waiting. Whatever you face today, the place God has prepared for you is already holding your name.