The Hooded Stranger

Prayer: I don't know if I am praying or not anymore. Someone asked me how I am praying and I said, "I'm not." But is that true? I am in deep thought and communion with God but is that prayer? It reminds me of taking a picture of someone and decreasing the range between the eye of the camera and the person's nose, until the nose becomes the entire picture and then, bang, you are enveloped in nose, you are in the nose, and finally you are the nose. That's how I feel right now, that either I am not praying at all, or I have become prayer. It is far more likely that I have just become a nose. 

If I try to speak to God in prayer I become mute. There is nothing more I can ask or say. My heart just numbly says, "Thou knowest." This takes me back to the first week after the diagnosis was made. Hans was sleeping and I was alone in my office. In a rare moment of spiritual clarity, I felt the windows of heaven fully open to me and that the Holy Spirit has especially prepared me for an encounter with God. I was fully drenched in my pain. I knew I had God's full attention. 


I began by saying tremulously, "I can't do this." What I meant was—"I can't say goodbye, I can't go on alone, I can't do this event right now. Please don't make me go through this." I had never said this to God before. Regardless of the things He has asked me to do, I have never denied Him. He has asked me to do many hard things but somehow  I knew this one would take the cake. 


It had already been several months since Hans had been fully active in the ministry. He had been growing increasingly tired and was spending more and more time in prayer. The loss of his spiritual presence was devastating to me. Now I had to work more than ever, with less resources than ever. A true recipe for burn out.

At the diagnosis, I immediately turned to the Lord. I didn't talk to anyone, or write anything or even pray vocally. I turned my face to the wall. I was stunned by the news, it was so off  the path. This could not be happening. 

So that evening, a moment of grace appeared before me. I said, "Lord it is me." I wondered if it made any difference that it was me that was standing before Him." When I say "me" I mean something special by that. It carries the idea of a special relationship of the quality of King David and God, or an Arthur with his Lancelot—a relationship already tested and proven, and consummated, if you will, by suffering and the shedding of blood. I have been His oracle, His mouthpiece. So I was not a neophyte in coming before God's throne. "Does it make any difference that it is me asking" was also based on the statistical evidence that few have been healed of cancer (or at least only a few have been documented.) 

In that moment, I saw a vignette occurring, perhaps it was a vision. From where I was standing I could see that I was in God's throne room, the seat of judgement. It was enormous. There were many pillars of fire, marble see through floors and the four living creatures were standing immediately before Him and behind them were choirs of angels. It was no small event. I was under the throne. It was my turn to speak. As I walked out with knees shaking, I saw that I was a sparrow. I was as small as a sparrow standing before an immense, immense throne. I could see no person on the throne, nor any face but somehow I knew that He was there. 

I was shocked by my appearance and immediately I thought, "So this is what I am to him. This is how small I am in both appearance and kind. I am the smallest and least significant thing in this place." Nevertheless, I was there with a mission and I did not shrink back, even though I was just a sparrow. It was then I noticed that I was dragging another sparrow with me. He was dead. I looked pitiful, a small plain sparrow dragging around another dead sparrow. I realized how awful my situation, how lowly, and how brazen to come before the throne and ask for this extremely trivial thing. I said to God, "This is my husband, Jack. Lord, nobody wants this man, but I do. He means everything to me. Can you save him?"  The bird hung loose from my beak where I was carrying him. I could see myself from God's eyes, and it was the saddest picture ever. How could He not have pity?

At once I realized that He had only answered my question, "Does it make any difference that it is me, Lord?" It had made a difference, but not as I had thought. I was allowed entrance to the judgement seat, a full hearing, but my substance was only that of a sparrow when compared to the God-head. So on one hand, I was truly a small thing but at the same time, I could have a hearing as if I were a big thing. I didn't really care if I was a sparrow or not, I would deal with that revelation later, but what mattered to me was the dead bird in my mouth. Would God (the Father) restore him? Was God the Father willing to breathe life again into this old dead bird again?

The scene closed and I came back to the office where I been seated. My heart was strangely calm. Just appearing before God has an enormous effect on the soul. The vision ended before the answer came. 

What happened next was a series of doctors appointments, the end of a 7 year home church, the sale of our ministry center, the loss of our friends, most of all—the enormous loss of not preaching or teaching the Word of God. Abbey life was over. We moved to a new house in the valley (again) and life went on to a new normal. 

In one evening in prayer, I was reading the story of Zacharias and the vision of the angel appearing before him while ministering at the altar. I read without much interest really, but as I turned to close the book, a hand touched my arm indicating not be in such a hurry. Spiritual energy activated the next two verses and applied them to my heart as truth, "Do not be afraid, your petition has been heard." 

What had been my petition? That I not go through the grieving process? That He postpone death for Hans a few years? That God heal my sparrow husband? The issue remains lost at sea. Something has been answered but I know not what. 

When sharing this story with my son, Ryan, he respectfully asked me, "Mom, what if Dad isn't healed, what will that do to your theology, your faith?" As I sat there quietly waiting for help from God to answer this, nothing came. So finally I responded, "I don't know..I will be shocked I think." It was a sorry-a___'  answer if you get my drift. But that evening the Holy Spirit, in a reproving tone said to me, "God is not a man that He should lie." 

I lay this before you as both a witness and as a hope. Will you speak to God about this mystery? I have based many important life decisions on less than this evidence of God's leading. None have ever failed. But could this be the first? Was this just imaginings from the state of grief and shock?

Nothing I see through my physical eyes indicates that God will heal him or that he is being healed. Nothing the doctors have said has led me to believe any outcome other than death is possible. My heart only holds the voice of the angel. And perhaps I do not really know what death is. Is that possible? Perhaps Han's ship arriving on the other side is really the answer. I still don't know I am ashamed to admit. Only Jesus still says to me, 

Have you been with me so long and still you do not know me?

And the stranger walked beside them and they did not recognize him, until the breaking of the bread.