One evening, very late, I received a phone call from a friend that was a Catholic Nun.
Sister Maria was the second in command at a Catholic hospital in Massachusetts, and I met her as the result of a training contract I had with that organization. What began as a small contract to interview and train pediatric nurses soon turned into an organizational development contract and what was uncovered was the incredible tension between the nursing staff administration, the chief administrator, the nuns that owned the hospital, and Sister Maria.
I was thrilled to be able talk to her. I wanted to find out, initially, how her faith played a part in her work. I was eager to see my new faith put to work and so during our first interview, I asked her directly about her faith in Christ and how this helped her at the hospital with all her responsibilities. She looked at me like I was coming from right field, became agitated and angry, and that began our relationship.
After several more weeks of interviews with staff, nurses and doctors, it became clear that Sister Maria was a central figure in some of the problems the hospital was facing. She was under great pressure from the convent she was part of, which owned the hospital, and even though she had no position of authority in her order, she was second in command at the hospital to Alan, the chief administrator.
She was very angry and bitter.
One evening, while driving back to my motel, room, I was praying and asking the Lord what my recommendations should be to the chief administrator and Sister Maria. I had been thinking about recommending psychotherapy for Sister Maria, and as I prayed, the Lord spoke to my heart and said, “Take her to the mountains.” Several weeks later, I met with Alan, chief administrator, and told him my recommendations for the organization and staff, and in discussing Sister Maria, I told him I should take her to the mountains for three days before recommending psychotherapy. He literally fell off his chair laughing. He stated that the convent would never approve it and that she had probably never slept outside of the convent in twenty years. I urged him to get the approval.
The following day, we met in his office with the Mother Superior that was in charge of the world-wide order of nuns that owned the hospital. She happened to be in town for two days from Paris. We talked about Sister Maria, and I recommended the three-day mountain trip. She said, immediately, “That would be wonderful.”
Three weeks later we were climbing the Glen Boulder trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. She would not talk to me and was very angry at having to go on this trip. I stayed well ahead of her as we climbed. The first night, I pitched two tents, well into the forest and just below the tree line, cooked some freeze-dried meals, which she would not eat, told her we would get up very early, and crawled, into my tent. The following morning, I told her I would clean up and pack the camp and her pack and meet her up the trail, approximately a half mile, at the top of Slide Peak, and to wait for me there.
It was an incredibly beautiful day, and as I arrived close to the top of Slide Peak, which was well above the treeline, I could see her on a pile of rocks at the very top of the mountain. Her arms were lifted in the air and she was crying out and singing to the Lord. I reached her and asked if she was OK. She said, “The Lord has touched me” and she began to sing and weep again.
We spent two more days walking on the peaks of the Mt. Washington range. Her personality and attitude were totally transformed by the Lord, and her behavior and attitude at the hospital amazed everyone.
It was several months later that she called me late in the evening, desperate to have me talk to her sister. They drove eighty miles that evening and arrived near midnight. Sister Maria had one sister in her natural family. Carol was the younger of the two and as she sat weeping and sharing her story, her sister held her hands to calm her.
Shortly after her marriage to her husband she was working as a nurse in a local doctor’s office and had an affair with him. Shortly after this she discovered she was pregnant and was afraid it may have been as the result of her relationship with the doctor. The child was born severely handicapped and after two years, doctors recommended the child be institutionalized. Carol refused. It was also during this time that the child, even with the retardation, began looking like her ex-boss.
Carol never shared any of this with anyone, and never confessed it to her priest. After carrying this guilt for twelve years and caring for Ron Jr., who seemed now to be getting progressively worse, she had attempted suicide. She shared how she took Ron Jr. into the garage with her, shut all the doors and windows, opened the car windows, and started the car. She sat there with her child in her arms weeping, waiting for the fumes to destroy them both. Something told her to stop, that she had not talked to her sister.
So, she took her son to go see Sister Maria and two hours later they were sitting with me. The three of us were weeping. The pain and guilt that Carol had carried all these years was immense. Every day, looking at her son, was a reminder of her horrendous mistake. Not only was her guilt overpowering, she was terrified of anyone finding out, particularly her husband, Ron. She had finally decided that she could not bear it anymore and decided to end it all.
Carol was desperate, and I shared Christ with her. She drank in every word. She wanted forgiveness and the Lord was present to give it. I had never sensed, up to that point, the power of the Spirit working through words spoken to heal. But we prayed and asked the Lord to forgive Carol. We so wanted her despair and pain to be gone, and I knew the Lord was weeping with us over her condition. Carol cried out to the Lord, “Oh, Jesus please forgive me!” Carol wept in her sisters arms, and after several minutes told us that she felt like she needed to tell her husband.
Several days later, Sister Maria called and told me that Carol had gone home and went to bed but could not sleep. Very early in the morning, after praying most of the night and feeling the Lord’s presence, she woke her husband and confessed to him what had happened and her attempt at suicide, and that the Lord had delivered her from it all! They both wept in each other’s arms for the rest of the night. This was not the end of the struggle for Carol and Ron, but the Lord had done an incredible work in her life.
Brian Warner. Johanna’s Eleven (Kindle Locations 564-624).