I misjudged my step onto the two adjacent planks that formed a precarious bridge across the overgrown creek at the back of my parents house. And that one misjudged step sent my right leg plummeting into the small gap between the planks.

The panic was instant as my flesh scraped away against wood and when gravity could drop me no further I assumed that I was trapped and the awful, registering pain made me assume the worst.

I called for my dad who was up talking on the porch. I called him again. The moments waiting for him, unsure if he had heard me, were long and frightening.

In the end, after the initial shock wore off, I tentatively tested my leg and found I could pull it out from between the planks. Only then did I turn and see my father close behind me, his presence a secure reminder that he had heard me and was always ready to help me.

Last night, I found myself in a similar place spiritually. I had fallen and was caught in painful lies about my worth. I felt uncertain that I would ever get out. I begged God to help, angered and scared by His lack of immediacy.

Later I went to His Word and followed an urge to pray for someone else, a prayer that focused on that person’s worth, yet strangely a prayer that helped to lift my own self-worth out from the lies in which it had been trapped. And mid-prayer I felt God’s Spirit rushing to me – like the turning and seeing my dad close behind – His presence reassuring me that He had heard me and He loved me.