I walked into the church office one day following lunch with Art. His secretary said there had been a phone call for me. “Janet’s family is desperately trying to reach you,” she said. “Janet is hysterical and they can’t do anything to help her. They want you to come and see if you can calm her down.”
I grabbed car keys and left to drive the few blocks to her house. “Father,” I prayed, “I don’t know what to say to Janet or how to calm her down. Please help me know what to say or do,” I pleaded. Then I thought of a couple of passages of Scripture—the 23rd Psalm and a portion from Isaiah 43 that starts out, ‘Fear not for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name, you are mine…’ I marked the verses in my Bible and went into the house.
Janet was lying in bed sobbing. I began talking to her softly. “Janet, the Bible has promises to help us through times when we can’t handle things ourselves. But these promises are for those who belong to Him. They are not promises that those who have not accepted Jesus as their Savior can lean on for comfort and help.” I told her that one of the promises that I leaned on is 1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
“If you were to turn your life over to Him,” I told her,” He would help you cope with all the pain and all that is happening in your life. Are you ready to do that, Janet?”
“Yes,” she told me tearfully. And so we prayed together and she invited Jesus to be her Savior. When we finished praying, I told her that now she could claim God’s promises as His child. I asked if I could read to her a couple of passages of Scripture that God had placed on my heart for her. I began by reading Psalm 23. Then I read the passage in Isaiah 43. By the time I finished reading, she was calm and lying still, the pain had subsided for now. I prayed that God would now give her rest. I told Janet that I would just sit quietly beside her until she was able to go to sleep. In no time at all she was sound asleep. After a time, I told her caregiving family that I was leaving, but if they needed me, they could call me any time and I would come.
Throughout the next many weeks that Janet lay so ill, I would get calls day or night to come to be with her. I always would sit on the edge of her bed and read to her Psalm 23 and Isaiah 43:1-5. By the time I would finish and pray for her, she would be sleeping.
One night in particular, several of her family members were there when I arrived. When I went into her darkened room, I could sense that some of them were watching what I was going to do from the doorway. I did what I always did. I talked with Janet briefly, then I read the two passages of Scripture to her and prayed. And like always, by the time I had finished, she was sleeping peacefully.
When I left her sleeping and went out into the kitchen, the family asked me to sit with them. They had some questions for me. As far as I knew, none of them except her mother-in-law were believers and she was not present. “What did you do to help her?” they asked. I told them that they saw what I had done…read some verses from the Bible and prayed with her. “We don’t understand it. We tried that too, but nothing seemed to help. Why?”
I had no definitive answers for them, unless it was what I had told Janet weeks earlier, that God’s promises are for His children. I had no other explanation. Their questions did open the door for me to share with them what it meant to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Whether any of them ever acknowledged Him in their lives, only eternity will reveal. However, for me there has never been a greater example of the power of God’s Word. It also illustrated to me how God chooses to use us as channels for His power!
At her funeral sometime later, I wept…tears of gratitude for all God had taught me through my relationship with Janet. And because of my obedience she was no longer suffering and in pain. She was whole and enjoying all that awaited her in heaven.