The Same Genre, But Different Specifics
We were swapping stories, as my deacon friend and I often
do. We were talking about
“God-incidences.” A recent author also
referred to these occurrences as “God-winks” – where something happens that you
just know is a little nod-and-wink from the Father upstairs who truly doesn’t
miss a trick. He told a great story of
something that happened recently; I chuckled and then told a similar story with
the point: for him, those kinds of
things happen in a reasonable way. For
me, those kinds of things always have a strange, perhaps humorous, twist to
them. I’ll let you decide.
The deacon was speaking with another church staff member in
the parking lot. A young distraught
woman came across the tarvia with a bag in her hand. Deacon went out to meet her, presuming she
had some temporal need (ie. food bank access) that he could facilitate. But when he spoke directly to her and she
shared her story of a critically ill family member, he realized that she had
come for support that was more spiritual in nature. She reached into the bag and produced a
rosary and simply asked that it be blessed so she could give it to her family
member. Deacon prayed with her asking
for consolation for the family member who was suffering as well as the people
who were affected by this sad situation.
The young woman expressed her gratitude, “Can I give you a hug?” and both
walked away from the interface feeling buoyed-up.
So the ministry interface he had was like this: broad daylight, visibly observed by another
team member, situation was clear on how to proceed and no churchy-rules or
regulations were bent or broken in the process.
And then there’s the way that my ministry stuff unfolds: in the dark, abandoned by any sense of
personnel back-up in case the person tries to kill me, and I have to use what
little good judgment I have left to decide if/how I can help the person.
I pulled into the church parking lot at 9pm when it was
quite dark, but the autumn air had that warm-yet-crisp feel to it. I was on my way into the chapel for an hour
of prayer. As I almost always do, I make
a visual scan of the area before stepping out of my vehicle. I see a distraught young woman perhaps in her
mid-to-late-twenties clutching a stuffed animal in her arms. She was looking around as if not knowing what
direction to walk. I stepped out of the car
and onto what is now the Stage of God.
Somehow I get the feeling He is watching and orchestrating this to see
how I am going to respond.
“How can I help you?” is really the only question to ask at
this point. She steps toward me, still
looking uncertainly behind her across the street toward the rectory where the
priest works during the day. She
hesitates and then holds forth the stuffed animal. I want to say I think it was a dinosaur or a
bear of some kind. “I wanted to see if I
can get this blessed for my friend who was just put in the nursing home with
only a few weeks to live.”
I’ve been Catholic all my life. We typically bring things like rosaries, crucifixes
or religious statues or holy pictures to a priest for a special blessing. The user thereof may then find the object
helps them draw closer to God Himself.
So we’ve got a few irregularities in this current scenario: #1 no priest present or attainable at this
hour (unless you are in the hospital and the priest is called in to give you
the final anointing blessing); #2 I’m
not ordained clergy to be handing out blessings officially like priests and
deacons are; and #3 the item to be blessed is not the norm. So, I’m thinking, wracking my brain, for what
I know about the Scriptures that will justify this break with protocols that
I’m about to do. And the lightbulb over
my head pops on and I remember that people brought things like handkerchiefs to
St. Paul to bless and then they’d take them home and lay them on the sick
person as if the handkerchief represents the presence of the holy person doing
the praying. Those people got
healed. So, this young woman is giving
me this stuffed animal that she just picked up at the corner store and is going
to bring to the dying woman in the nursing home. At that point, I started seeing the path
forward. I invited her to step into the
church.
I took some holy water and made the sign of the cross on the
stuffed animal. Then I asked her if I
could pray with her. She said yes.
I prayed for healing and consolation in her life, and for the Lord to
bring His love to her… then the tears came …. she had given over some of her
emotional load and went away feeling a little better. That’s what I had hoped would happen.
As she walked out the church door and I settled into a time
of quiet prayer for my own re-charge, I mused how The Leadership would view me
doing this – me, a non-ordained woman just following the leading of the Spirit
to help heal His people. Another Bible
passage popped into my mind – where a prophet of God was going in the wrong
direction and the donkey he was riding refused to move. He began to beat his donkey, which then
buckled to its knees and spoke to its owner:
“Do not beat me. I can see the
angel of God standing before us blocking this path.” And I got the message:
If God will use a talking donkey to straighten out a prophet
in the Old Testament who was going in the wrong direction, why can’t he use me
to help His distraught child find peace?
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