My world was being shaken and I had a new sense of love and compassion for those that would come to see me.
Katherine was referred to me by the church as the result of a phone call from the assistant pastor and showed up at the office door an hour later. My first impressions of her were that she was totally incoherent and catatonic. She could hardly speak and would stare off into space, frozen, often not responding to questions. She came in and sat down and after several minutes finally revealed that she had just escaped, the day before, from Danvers Mental Hospital, after trying to hang herself on the ward door. She had the marks and welts on her neck from that event.
Here was a young woman asking for help and I was lost. I felt like I had nothing to give her and with all my training could not help her. She sat in front of me with glazed eyes staring at me. I felt like my whole professional life was on the line and being challenged by those eyes. The Lord spoke to my heart: “Ask Me.” I took her hands and began to pray. I was afraid and did not know what to do. I confessed my ignorance and inability and asked the Lord to be my strength.
I don’t know how long this went on, but my sense was that the Lord was showing me that all the wisdom associated with my psychology and thinking was of little use here and of little use to Him. I was proud of my abilities and proud of my learning and the Lord was revealing it for what it was during this prayer time. I didn’t love this woman and had little compassion for the pain she was enduring. I only saw her as a threat to my pride and education. I wept, while holding this poor woman’s hands, over her condition and the Lord’s rebuke of my own skills. There came a point when the only alternative was to ask Him to heal and restore. I eventually looked up at Katherine. Her eyes were clear and sparkling. The dark grayness was gone and the fear that had pervaded the room was gone. Tears were trickling down her cheeks and she smiled and spoke to me.
This was the most incredible transformation I had ever seen. I had the sense that the Lord had taken a real darkness out of her life. She was still in pain, but the oppression was gone. I felt like the Lord had shown me that He could heal and restore and deliver.
The session with Katherine ended and we scheduled follow-up and more prayer. I ran upstairs to tell Sharon what had happened, filled with excitement and wonder at what God had done through me. Our pet hamster had died the night before and was lying in its cage with its legs up. It was either dead or very, very sick. I was filled with real faith and reached into the cage, took the hamster in my hands and asked the Lord to heal it. The hamster started to squiggle. I set it down in the cage and it ran around and around. It was incredible. Two or three hours later the hamster did die but I thought the Lord had shown me something awesome.
Brian Warner. Johanna’s Eleven (Kindle Locations 421-446).