What a day yesterday was in terms of seeing God working in people's lives. I started the day tuning in to a country station in Wooster to keep up with local weather conditions. We were starting the day with freezing rain and I wanted to keep up with what I was looking at ahead. I wasn't two hundred yards down the road before I found someone off in the ditch. No one was hurt but the young man was very grateful that after 45 minutes someone finally stopped just to check and see if he was okay. Help was on the way as he had a cell phone. There was nothing I could do as it was going to take a winch to get him out. We talked for a few moments and then parted ways. I said, "God bless you," to him as I climbed in my truck. You could tell people didn't say that to him often because there was a long pause after which he said, "God bless you!."
As I traveled to Wooster ,just before I got into the office, there was a Randy Travis song that came on. "Three Wooden Crosses." Had never heard it before, but what a touching reminder that the seemingly small things we do in life can have a huge impact in exponential ways on other people's lives. A dying pastor places his worn out Bible in the hands of a hooker which leads to things that only God can accomplish. Wow!
A couple hours later I found myself sitting in on a bereavement session with one of my co-workers who is a Social Worker. We often team up. There are professional lines that they as SW's cannot cross when it comes to spiritual conversation. I can tread where they know we need to go but they are prohibited from doing so. At our agency there are several SW's willing to partner with chaplains this way and more often than not it is a very symbiotic formula benefiting the client.
The woman who she was meeting with has been in several times and I have participated in the last 3 sessions. As I walked in the room to join the session already in progress one could tell by the woman's face that there had been significant change is this woman's life. . . for the better. Her countenance spoke for her. (Countenance describes a person's facial expression in terms of revealing their emotional or spiritual state of being.) Her problems had not gone away but her perspective of them had radically changed. She was beginning to understand that losses, tragedies, conflict and challenges could not only be endured but be gloirify God when turned over to Christ. She spoke of the new levels of intimacy with God she was beginning to experience, the reading she was doing, the changes in her attitude, the positive affect it was having on her family, the overall spiritual growth she was having. We had a great session, shared some scripture. She was so eager to pray as I closed our time together.
All that was enough to give anyone an excitement about the day and things to ponder while taking inventory of the day's events but it wasn't even noon yet.
At 11:00 am I found myself again with the SW but also the hospice RN sitting in the living room of a new patient. There were a couple of small decorative crosses on shelves as I looked around the room, but the biggest object in the room that spoke about her faith was about an 18" tall wall hanging that is very familiar to many of the Christian faith as an accepted rendition of what Jesus might have looked like. As we got around to talking about her faith background, she shared how she had been brought up in a strict religious environment where guilt was a big factor and requirements to participate in many activities made the whole church scene seem more like prison than a means to know God and grow in his Love.
As we talked she eventually made a statement that she hoped she was going to get into heaven. I asked how she was going to get there and she replied she hoped she had led a good enough life to get into heaven. I paused for a moment.
l pointed to the wall hanging and asked, "Who is that to you?" she replied, "Jesus, of course."
I then asked, " what is the purpose of having Jesus in our lives if we have have to earn our way into heaven by doing enough good?"
She thought for a moment and replied, "Jesus is there to help us be good." (I thought wow, over 12 years in a very main line denomination and this is all she came away with!)
You never want to burst a person's bubble and leave them with chewing gum all over their head!. I first said, "You are absolutely right, Jesus is there to help us do good, but did you know there is more, more that will make the thought of heaven more wonderfuland easier to attain than doing good works?"
At first she had a look on her face of grave concern as though she had done something wrong or I had shared something that was suspect. What came next was so tender. Her sister in law drew to her side and said, "Let me hold your hand." Wow did they have a supportive relationship!. The sister in law obviously knew what was coming and she wanted to give her some assurance that it was okay to hear it.
First I asked, "Are you familiar with John 3:16?"
"No." she replied, but when I started to recite it she did acknowledge familiarity with it. I went on to do a little teaching about the difference between believing and doing as it relates to the promise of eternal life. Then I asked, "Can I read a few verses to you from YOUR Bible?"
This gave her great relief to see that I was going to give her more information from a source she trusted. They quickly found her neatly preserved Bible and handed it over to me. I turned to Ephesians 2 and began to read and explain as we went through the verses about being saved by grace through faith in what Christ already did for us. This lady about jumped out of her recliner! When the moment hit that she already was assured of her salvation because of her love for, belief in and submission to Jesus, you could almost see the choir of angels in the room singing the Hallelujah chorus. She had gone from guardedly hopeful to jubilantly joy filled in an instant. Oh what a releif it was for her. What a day this turned out to be! Could it get any better? (And I get paid to do this!).
I finished out the work day got home early, spent the evening quietly at home but the day was still not over. As I lay in bed preparing to fall asleep Mary did something I rarely see happen. She was channel surfing and stopped on a christian station. Usually it's a flamboyantly dressed individual running a phon-a-thon or preaching a health and wealth gospel message but tonight was different. It was Don Piper, pastor and author of "90 minute in Heaven."
We laid there and listened to his personal testimony of being clinically dead for 90 minutes and how that all played out. His faith before he died, his experience in heaven, his faith through his recovery, his being used by God to take the message to others to leave something behind a message of hope before he left this world again permanently. I pondered the connections between my "little" accident, my recovery, my ministry and his as I tried to fall asleep. I never lost consciousness during my accident and my wounds seem so minor compared to his but there was so much I could relate to in how it affects one's life and others
I had to get up. It certainly wasn't too much God for one day, I don't think I'll ever say that but it definitely was a too much to ponder, too much "Divine Conspiracy", too much "I'm talking to you, Bob," to think about as I thought through the day.
I heard the words from that song several more times before I finally went to sleep in the wee hours of the next day.
"It's not what you take when you leave this world behind you,
It's what you leave behind you when you go."
Praise to the God of All Comfort
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.
