“WHAT HAPPENS WHEN people die?”
I remember her face—an old woman, with an intensity in her eyes I didn’t understand at the time. I was standing at her door offering her Christian books.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to just tell you what I think. I’d rather tell you what the Bible says,” I responded. “Would you like me to come back to study the Bible with you?”
“Yes!” She grasped my hand eagerly.
A few days later I sat in her living room getting to know her. She told me her story. Raised Catholic, she was outraged when her friend got pregnant out of wedlock and the priest refused to baptize the baby. Recognizing the hypocrisy, she decided this was not a God she wanted to worship. She had lived her life without reference to God and without cracking open a Bible.
But now she had cancer, and she wanted to know.
What was going to happen to her when she died?
PRAYER HEALS
She had energy for only that one Bible study, but what a beautiful study it was. At the end, she smiled and said, “Thank you. That’s what I needed to know.”
But what struck her most about our meeting surprised me. It was my prayer. I had prayed a simple prayer at the beginning of our study, asking for God to guide us.
On future visits, she began asking more and more about prayer. “You pray like you’re just talking to God. Like He’s your friend.”
“He is,” I assured her.
Finally, on one visit, she said with uncharacteristic boldness, “I have been praying.” She pointed to her front window. “I sit there in my chair, and I look up at the sky and I talk to Him. Do you think . . . do you think He minds that?” She looked at me a little anxiously.
“Oh, He loves that! He doesn’t mind at all!” I assured her.
She beamed at me. “You think so?”
The next time I went to see her, she was gone.
Church can leave the most terrible wounds on our picture of the character of God. But that doesn’t have to be the end of the story.
So be the church today. If someone has been wounded by those who misrepresented God, you can bring healing. You can be a conduit of love, of joy, and of peace.
He heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds. And sometimes, He uses us.
