Three O'Clock in the Pediatric Ward

Maria Gutierrez hadn't slept in thirty-one hours. Her daughter Sofia, just seven years old, lay in the pediatric ICU at Denver Children's Hospital after an emergency appendectomy. The monitors beeped their steady rhythm. The hallway lights dimmed to their nighttime amber. Twice, the charge nurse had brought Maria a blanket and told her to rest in the recliner.

She couldn't. Every flutter of Sofia's eyelids, every shift under the thin hospital blanket, every slight change in the monitor's tempo — Maria caught it all. She adjusted the IV line when it kinked. She pressed the cool cloth to Sofia's forehead before the fever even registered on the screen. When Sofia whimpered at 3:14 AM, Maria was already whispering, "I'm right here, mija. Mama's right here."

That is a shadow of what the Psalmist declares. "He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." But here is the difference — Maria's vigil would eventually end. Exhaustion would claim her. God's watchfulness has no shift change, no fatigue, no moment of distraction. The One who made the mountains you lift your eyes toward is the same One tracking every breath you take, guarding your going out and your coming in, from this time forth and forevermore. You have never drawn a single breath unwatched by the One who loves you.