***Listen To Audio Version: While I’m Here Audio 613
Today’s Devotional Scripture: “And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.” Job 42:10 KJV
The Message For Today (August 11, 2026):
***Listen To Audio Version: While I’m Here Audio 613
I had to take my one-year-old baby boy to the hospital last week because of how he sounded while breathing. It was later diagnosed as croup. I had to leave the comfort of my home at 3:00 a.m. or so, with just my son and me, and drive thirty minutes away from home to the hospital, hypervigilant because that’s when drunk drivers are out.
When we arrived in the ER, they took us back and did three or four breathing treatments. After the third, the ER physician said he would have to be admitted so that they could continue to monitor him. They moved us to our room, and we spent the whole day Tuesday in the hospital and didn’t leave until the next morning.
Let me show you in real time how the Holy Spirit took me from complaining to praying.
When my baby woke me up from my deep sleep with the loud sound of his wheezing, I immediately began wrestling with God. My first thought was: “Here we go again. I just cannot get any sleep. I just cannot get a full night’s rest. The only time I can sleep is if I’m out of town. Why is this even allowed? Why are You allowing this to happen? How is this fair? You know how exhausted I am, and now I have to drive across town to spend hours in a hospital. How does my baby just wake up sick out of nowhere?”
On the car ride to the hospital, I was in tears and angry that this was happening yet again, and that I’m usually the one having to handle hard things by myself.
Once we arrived at the hospital, the Holy Spirit started quietly making His Presence known. Every nurse we had was the nicest. The physician on duty had the most serene, quiet nature. I have honestly never encountered anyone like him. A calm and steady presence in the storm raging inside my mind.
There were two phrases that stood out to me that this physician told me: (1) he commented that my baby was “sleeping like a baby,” which made me immediately wonder why it’s so hard for adults to do yet so natural for babies; and (2) he said: “don’t worry, he won’t remember any of this,” which made me pray that the Lord help us adults to forget the trauma and failures and mistakes like His Word says:
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.” Philippians 3:13 KJV
Both of these comments deserve their own devotionals, but we will save those for another time.
Once we arrived in our new room, we got settled in, and more testing and breathing treatments were done. At some point in the early evening, my baby boy became antsy, so I started walking him up and down the long hallways in his stroller, back and forth. The hallways are shaped like a track, so we did one lap with my head down, focused on him.
But on the second lap, Holy Spirit had me lift up my head, O ye gates. What did I see? The names of each child in each hospital room as I passed by. For privacy, I will not say their names here, but I began walking past every room on that floor, quietly saying the child’s name and then “by His stripes you are healed, and your family strengthened.”
After that second lap, I did two more, repeating the same prayer over every room. And for the rooms that didn’t have a name on them because they were empty, I said “Whoever left this room, by His stripes you are healed, and your family strengthened.”
He took me from wallowing in self-pity to worshiping Him and recognizing and praying for others in the same pit as me.
That exercise led me to say out loud: “While I’m here.”
While I’m here in this season called sickness, I will pray for those with physical or mental illnesses and diseases. While I’m here in this season called singleness, I will pray for those who also want to go from Ms. to Mrs. While I’m here in this season called wandering, I will pray for those who don’t know what their next steps are. While I’m here in this season called hopelessness, I will pray for those hanging on by a thread when it looks impossible. While I’m here in this season called infertility, I will pray for those who also do not see two lines on the pregnancy test.
While I’m here.
Closing Devotional Prayer
My Prayer for You:
Heavenly Father, meet the mighty woman of God reading this right now exactly where she is. Let Your Holy Spirit gently lift her head by the chin so she can look up and out at what she sees around her, so that she doesn’t get consumed with self-pity. No matter the pit she finds herself in, let her remember first and foremost that You are with her; and then that there are others desperately needing the light You placed in her to be shined into their dark places as only she can. That, O God, is the remedy to wallowing in grief due to the troubles of this world: the mindset that while I’m here, I will pray for and bless those here with me. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
Written by Marshay Iwu - You can subscribe to her Substack below:
