After my lunch snack of a tangy, Jonagold apple I continued to read my book, Allure of Hope by Jan Meyers. I am going to rewrite her story to give to you. My hope is that this story will touch someone’s heart. That they will be encouraged by a colliding of stories. We are not alone. Genesis 2:18.
[Sit back now because I’m going to tell you a story. Simply put, this is a story you may not believe, but I need to tell it anyway.
When Susan first cam into my office as a new client, I knew I was in trouble. Craig Barnes says, “Jesus is constantly moving us away from places where we would prefer to stay.” As Susan told me about herself, I knew the truth of those words. I wasn’t afraid of her, really. I was just strangely aware that something was in store for both of us.
As the process unfolded, it became clear that this would be a long-distance journey. NO simple processing of misplaced angst for this one. Right off, it became clear that Susan had lived a personal hell as a child in the hands of her own family, who were members of a cult committed to the appeasement and worship of Satan. They were all too quick to place their daughter’s welfare on the alter of their pursuit of power. Susan was now thirty years old, and every day was a battle for her.
Our journey began. It didn’t take long for me to see I was in over my head. A colleague brought in some consultants to help train us – people who are called to work in this realm. What happened during that training time shut me up. These counselors approached working with my client with the utmost humility and care. They were the handmaidens of God as they relied on His guidance in how to address her soul. We had the privilege of watching as she courageously invited Jesus to take her on a tour of her own soul. As He did this He slowly reclaimed the territory of her soul that had been held captive by evil for so long. The deception (she described it as “evil structures” that had been built around her heart) was blown apart by the light of the love of God. It was worship. It was enough to make me a charismatic.
Please continue to sit back. The story goes on.
Susan’s greatest fear was that she would never trust God. This fear was the forefront of her thinking as she dealt with memories of a time during college when members of the cult tracked her down and abducted her in a university parking lot. They took her to an abandoned area, and there, for an entire night, they put her through rigorous torture intended to get her to renounce her faith in Christ. The torture was so heinous and ongoing that she barely survived – they left her for dead in the tumbleweeds. She was found in time to get her to a hospital. But after she was discharged, she dropped out of school and wandered the streets for many months, a broken and confused bundle of fear. She was convinced her heart would now harden forever. Susan was a joy to work with – she was softhearted and timid – but she was also fully convinced of her hardheartedness. There was no convincing her otherwise. So the day came. A day like any other. Susan came into my office; we chatted about life and she began to tell me a little of what was going on for her. Suddenly there came a strange look into her eyes, on I had not seen before. She interrupted herself and asked, “When were you in Africa?” Startled, I told her I had been a missionary in southern Africa in the late 1980s.
“Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled as she obviously was remembering something. “Did you drive a white car? A two-door white car that broke down all the time?”
At this point I’m thinking, How did she know? What is going on here? For all the journeying we had done together, she knew little or nothing of my personal life or past. I told her that, yes, I had driven a two-door white car. Yes, it broke down frequently. It was the joke of our team, my car.
Susan was energized now. “Was your car often full of black, brown, and white people?”
It was South Africa, I’m thinking. But how did she know?
Susan proceeded to paint for me scenes from my life in Africa that she had no way of knowing. To the smallest detail. She described an area of Soweto where I used to drop off young people; it was an area I had no business being in. “Your were really naïve,” she said. We laughed. But as we laughed, I was completely unnerved by what was transpiriong.
She paused, and with tears in her eyes, she said, “Jan, it was you.”
“What was me?” I asked.
“It was you who I prayed for.”
“What?”
“During those days…after I was left for dead…You know, I could hardly get around, let alone pray. I had no desire to pray. But God kept giving me these visions of a curly-haired woman in Africa who I was supposed to pray for. I remember trying to ignore it, but I couldn’t. I prayed for you. A lot. I saw those scenes from your life, so I knew how to pray. I’m remembering now that I felt nuts praying for some woman I
didn’t know.”
Silence.
Susan and I sat in silence for twenty minutes as the reality of what she had said penetrated us. Finally, I began, “So what you are telling me is, you responded to the heart of God on behalf of someone else, someone you didn’t even know, in the midst of the most painful season of your life. And you’re telling me that the woman you prayed for was me?” I knew it was me.
There was nothing to say. We dissolved in worship. Remember, after abduction and torture, she was convinced she would always be hardhearted. As she realized that she had prayed for me – as she remembered that she had prayed for anyone – it was as if God had said, “Hardhearted, are you?” At the same time He gave me a gift of His intimate sight and care that I can never repay. He loved me enough to prompt a total stranger to pray for me as I roamed the countries of southern Africa. And He had the finesse (or sense of humor) to bring that woman into my counseling office ten years later.
Thank you for listening to this story. You can sit up now. I’ve told you this story because we all have stories of awe, stories that prompt our vision for what is possible with the wild heart of God.]
What is your story of awe?
