From Pain to Peace

     

     Editing is a big part of writing. It's the crafting of a piece that makes it more than just words strung together in a story. But I'm also aware that God edits our lives and rewrites our plans with His own. One of His edits began early today when a neighbor knocked on my door. She needed a ride to the hospital because her other half was taken to the hospital this morning. They had a car accident when someone hit them and totaled their car. The ambulance took him away and she had to walk home. I quickly got dressed and off we went to the hospital. 

      It took us a while to find him as he wasn't in the first hospital and we had to go across town to another one. This is a bad part of town and quite frankly I have been entirely out of touch for a long time with that level of poverty and what most of the people there have to deal with. Anyway, on the way, in the car, she was scared and shaken, I talked to her about trusting Jesus and our conversation resulted in her turning her life over to the Lord before we got out of the car. 

      When we got to the hospital where he was and they finally let us see him as several doctors were working on him, he was in deep pain. Not knowing what was wrong or where this was going I was able to lean down and speak with him and he followed me in a prayer to turn his life over to Jesus, whispering the words. I laid my hand over his where he was holding his ribs and I asked Jesus to touch Him through my hand and to bring life to him and release him from pain. When I prayed for peace and healing for him, he went from writhing in pain to peace and fell asleep. For a moment I had to look to see if he was still breathing he was so still. When he woke up again he seemed still in pain, though not as before, and I taught her that now that Jesus lived inside of her she had authority of His name to pray for people and she could lay her hand on him gently and speak peace over him in Jesus' name. She did and he settled down again. She told me she would share this with others because what better place is there than an emergency room to share Jesus with people.  Born again for an hour and already she's wanting to share Him with others. That's what I'm talkin' about.



       As I went to leave, in the next cubicle was a young man about thirty years old holding his jaw and looking like he too was in a lot of pain. I went in and talked to him. He couldn't move his jaw to talk but he responded with his eyes.  I asked him The Question:  Did he know Jesus?  Jesus could help him, did he want Jesus? He nodded almost imperceptibly but his eyes signaled yes.  I laid my hand on his shoulder and again prayed for Jesus to touch him and ease his pain. I told him to pray in his heart, following me in what I was going to say which he did and turned his life over to Jesus. I could see it on his face. A re-dedication if not a salvation.  I went back to check on my friends again before I left and when I went past the second man's cubical on my way out, he  waved to me. Felt like a brother waving to me. There seemed to be a message in the wave, like "Thanks for bringing Jesus to me." Joy! That's when you can feel the Lord's joy, bringing Him to someone who knows He just entered their lives in a meaningful way.

      I got to lay my hands on someone else parked on a liter in the hallway who was in extreme pain and pray and see her settle down, at least for a while. I had to go back and pray a few times until the doc finally came to her. The suffering was almost overwhelming in that ER, and many of the people outside waiting for rides, etc. are living lives that are far from my own daily experiences. Compassion arises. It puts some of my intellectual head stuff in a different perspective. Loving people who are suffering suddenly seems to take on a whole new visibility. I wonder if God isn't doing some editing of His own in the book of my life.