When Her Face Was All He Needed

In the neonatal intensive care unit at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, a premature baby named Elijah weighed barely two pounds. Monitors beeped warnings. His oxygen levels dipped. Nurses adjusted tubes and checked vitals around the clock.

For three weeks, Elijah's mother, Danielle, could only watch through the plastic walls of the isolette, her tears falling silently onto equipment she couldn't understand. Her son was right there, yet unreachable.

Then the nurses invited her to hold him. Skin to skin, face to face. As Danielle drew Elijah to her chest and looked down at him, something remarkable happened. His heart rate steadied. His breathing deepened. His oxygen levels climbed and the monitors stopped alarming. Researchers call it kangaroo care, but what the data really shows is simpler than any clinical term: a child stabilizes when he can see his parent's face.

That is the cry of Psalm 80. Israel was the struggling infant, gasping, fed on the bread of tears, surrounded by enemies who laughed at their weakness. And three times the psalmist pleads the same desperate prayer: "Restore us, O God; make Your face shine upon us, that we may be saved." Not send resources. Not fix the circumstances. Just turn Your face toward us. Because when the face of the Almighty shines on His children, everything that was failing begins to steady again.