... the story's ending

A couple years ago I was in a church service when I noticed an elderly lady sitting near the front. As soon as my eyes lit on her I was impressed with an almost overwhelming feeling that I needed to work with her as a healer. But I had never seen this lady before in my life and was not feeling particularly “in tune” spiritually at the time. So I immediately began to rationalize that the impression was, somehow, of my own doing … that we didn’t know each other and any conversation I would have with her about the issue could be very awkward … that I didn’t have the time that afternoon ... that, surely, there was someone more qualified than I to work with her.

But the feeling was piercing and unrelenting. Something inside me knew that if I passed on this impression, it would be a missed opportunity. So, I shifted from rationalizing to bargaining. I suggested to God that, if I was really supposed to work with her, it would help to have some confirming sign … confident that there would be none and that I could be relieved of the responsibility.

No sooner had the words left my mind’s mouth, when the woman stood up with great effort and with the help of a younger friend, walked feebly up to the front of the church where she knelt down to pray.

I was stunned. Not only was this an unusual occurrence during a service of this nature, but it also happened almost immediately after I had tried to “bargain out” of the situation.

After the service was over, I somewhat grudgingly approached the pastor and explained what had happened and he was gracious enough to introduce the two of us. As we were gathered in a small circle and the pastor explained what had happened during the service, the eyes of both the woman and her friend filled with tears. I didn’t ask her if she was suffering from any physical problems or if there were any other troubling issues in her life. I simply put one hand on her shoulder and the other on back of her head and began working with her. We sat there for about twenty minutes, tears streaming down her face the entire time. When I was finished, I simply told her I hoped I was of some help and we parted ways.

About six months later I received a phone call late one evening. The voice at the other end of the line obviously belonged to an elderly woman and she identified herself as the woman whom I had worked with that long past Sunday morning. She said that she had MS and multiple other physical problems and that some of the symptoms had improved after I’d worked with her that day. She went on to talk about the difficulties she had faced in her life, many in the very recent past. But what was really on her heart was this … why did I think that I was impressed to work with her.

That was really the $64,000 question because I, frankly, didn’t know. I was simply responding to a strong impression that I’d received. Deep inside me was a feeling that I wasn’t working with her to “cure” her of the physical difficulties she was experiencing. I had thought about her many times since that Sunday afternoon and never really came up with the reason why I had been moved to do what I did. But, suddenly, while on the phone with her, the answer dawned on me. And I told her that, sometimes, God just wants us to know that S/he’s thinking of us. It was as simple as that.

When I told her that, there was silence on the other end of the phone for a few moments until she quietly responded with, “Thank you.”

I’m a person who likes to have all the answers. I want to know why certain things happen as they do. I want to be able to comprehend how all the pieces of the mosaic we call life are put together. But, of course, I can’t. I can’t see a big enough picture. Most of it doesn’t make sense to me.

I haven’t seen this woman since. Frankly, I don’t know whether she’s alive or dead ... or to what degree I may or may not have helped her that Sunday morning. And, although I believe that God may have simply wanted her to know that S/he was thinking of her, I don’t have any more information than that about why S/he may have impressed me to approach her. Perhaps it was to mitigate certain aspects of her disease process. Perhaps it was to help with pain control. Maybe it was to prepare her somehow for her impending physical death.

The point to my little story is that, if we compare life to a book, we may get to read many chapters but we don’t always get to see how things end. And you have to come to a point where that’s all right. You do what you need to do … be obedient to promptings … listen to the still, small voice … and leave the ending in God’s hands.

Sometimes it has to be enough to know that, even though you don’t pen the endings, it doesn’t mean they’re not there.