A Wonderful Blessing

Ann Cooper

            In 2007 my husband and I bought a small Tennessee farm and spent the next two years happily repairing and improving the old farm house and barn on the property.  We were enjoying all our projects and seeing the farm take shape.

            In 2009 my husband had an accident while he was putting up fences that caused a small wound in his arm.  He ignored it, wrapped it in a bandana handkerchief, and continued working.  The wound became infected, which the doctors said had “turned septic”.  This is just a fancy word for blood poisoning.  He was very ill and all of his vital organs, especially his lungs, were very badly damaged. 

            My beloved husband of 62 years was never the same again.  He had to have a sleeping mask that would turn on when he quit breathing.  This was to control his sleep apnea.  Soon afterward he had to have oxygen at all times.  Several times an extended hospital stay was required. 

            When he returned from his last stay in the hospital he called our daughter Mary Ann and me to his bedside and demanded a promise that we would never put him in the hospital again.  Many days he was not in touch with reality and was drifting in and out, sometimes clear and sometimes understanding nothing.  The second stage of Alzheimer’s was setting in also.

            Mary Ann, who is a nurse, said, “Mom, let’s move everything out of the living room and set it up like a hospital room.”  No sooner was that done than he failed to recognize either of us.  Mary Ann gave him the most tender, loving care --above and beyond expectations.  I could not have done it without her.  For two weeks we could not communicate with him.

            This was such a sad time for me, as day by day he moved further and further away.  At 3:00 a.m. on April 28, 2010, as I slept near him on a cot, he called my name twice.  I jumped up and ran to his bedside.  Very clearly he said to me, “Ann, I love you very much.”  I had heard of moments of clarity shortly before death, but I had never seen it.  I called Mary Ann and together we sat on either side of his bed holding his hand.  We hoped that he could understand that we were telling him good-bye, and how much we loved him.  At 7:00 o’clock that same morning he quietly passed away.

            I shall thank God forever for that last time to say “I love you” and to say “Good-bye”.  What a wonderful blessing!

An Incredible Gift

Dede Eshleman

One Saturday morning some years ago, I didn't know I was going to meet the man I would fall in love with.  I was only planning on "doing my job" as a youth leader for the Episcopal Diocese.  My assignment was to take a group of teenage girls to St. Mary of the Angels for a Diocesan-wide volleyball tournament. We expected to have fun -- not to win any awards.  That day I was also dog-and-house sitting.  

After the tournament the plan was for the girls to come back there with me, hang out at the pool, and order pizza.  Later we were to join other youth group members for a dance at the Cathedral of St. Luke.  This was a pretty typical Saturday for me when I was a youth leader.  

The activities for the day began.  I was playing volleyball with the kids when one of the girls asked if she could invite the youth group from St. Gabriel's to join us for the pool party and the dance later in the evening.  I readily agreed, since I was a friend of their youth leader, Marcia.  Later Marcia told me she'd have to run a couple of kids home, but would send her assistant, Jamie, with the teenagers.  

It wasn't until we were loading into cars around three o'clock that I realized 'Jamie' was not a girl!  Within a few minutes I learned that the girls in my youth group had hatched a plot over lunch to set me up with Jamie. In the process, they set themselves up with the guys from St. Gabe's.

A year later, when Jamie and I started our pre-marital counseling, we realized one thing--had we not met that day, it would have been incredibly unlikely that we would ever have met at all.  Jamie was along to help Marcia because he liked to play volleyball.  I was just “doing my job”.

Sometimes God’s most incredible blessings come along when I just show up for work

Big George and the Good Shepherd

Elizabeth Gardner

Big George, my dad, was a very loving person who knew no strangers.  This is an incident in time, that I feel should be shared.

In late May 1971, my husband Bob and I went to Clearwater, Florida, where he had business appointments.  We were supposed to have gone to visit my parents in Durham, North Carolina, that weekend, but were unable to make it.

When we returned to our Longwood home on June 1, I felt that something was not quite right. Bob had gone outside to do yard work, and I was in the house unpacking from our trip.  Suddenly I ran out into the yard and began talking rapidly to him.  I said, “Bob, I feel that, for some reason, we are going to go through deep waters.” After going back inside, this unsettled feeling was still with me.

That night after supper I developed a terrible headache - - the worst one I have ever had.  I had to sit in semi-darkness as my eyes were so sensitive to light.  About 9:00 o’clock while still sitting in the darkness of our small living room, I somehow began moving into this dark tunnel with great speed.  Quickly I approached the end of the tunnel, saw a very bright light, and came to an abrupt halt.  At that very moment, my headache was gone, and I was aware of being back in my chair.  Just then the telephone rang, and my mother gave me the sad news that my beloved dad had just died.

After the shock of our loss, I realized that as close as I was to my dad, I was allowed to travel with him along the path he was

on, but I was stopped.  Dad traveled on to meet Jesus and entered the larger life.

As sad as it was, Jesus was with us both in this earthly separation.  “He is with us always even to the end of the ages.”

While attending my dad’s funeral in the church where I had gone as a child, I looked up at the gorgeous Good Shepherd altar window.  I saw my dad standing there in a beautiful blue jacket right next to Jesus and the sheep, smiling his wonderful sweet smile at me.  

I was comforted seeing him with Jesus, the Great Shepherd.

In the Eye of the Beholder

Barbara S. White 

Robert Pasquel-White, my son, was born in Rio Piedras, a suburb of San Juan, Puerto Rico on November 17, 1972. Even though we moved back to the U.S. mainland when he was six months old, he retained an unexplained love of Puerto Rico and was proud of his birthplace.

On October 30, 1990 (four months after graduating from high school in Virginia, a week after returning from working with his father in San Juan, and a week before entering the U. S. Army), Robert was killed in a tragic automobile accident. His exuberant love of life was stilled a few days before his 18th birthday.

Six weeks later I moved to Puerto Rico to join my husband in San Juan. I gave up a successful and most enjoyable career with Girl Scouts USA, left our home in a scenic and historic area of

Virginia and said farewell to many friends and the close-knit community of Buck Mountain Episcopal Church. I also left an English-speaking culture. All of this caused a loss of my identity and a strong base of support while bearing intense pain in my heart and soul.

          It was several months later, during a visit to the Art Museum of Ponce on the Caribbean side of the island, that the miracle happened. While viewing an extraordinary collection of pre-Renaissance paintings, all of which had religious themes, I encountered one among the many that held my focus. How did the artist capture such grief in the eyes of the Virgin Mary? Where had I seen that look before? It took a few minutes to realize that I had seen the same look of absolute sorrow in the mirror. I realized that when I was at my lowest, there in the bottom of my soul were God and Mary. They, too, had lost a beloved son.

God’s Messenger

The Reverend Debra Rice

            At one of St. John’s outdoor services, I was preaching about how important it is to stop and pay attention to God’s voice in our lives, rather than to our own. At just the right moment it was as if God said, “Cue the hummingbird.”   A beautiful hummer flew in and feasted on our altar flowers!  He lingered and seemed unconcerned that I was only two feet away.  Just in case we didn’t get the point, God had sent a visual exclamation point!  I simply stopped preaching, and we all watched in delight.  It was a gift from God to stop us and remind us that He is always present.

St. John’s Episcopal Church

Cartoogechaye, North Carolina

Jesus’s Walk with Me

Louise Field

Many years ago I began receiving revelations.  It was a time when circumstances of my life were in upheaval.  Prayer counseling at Good Shepherd with Father David Suellau, Father Bruce Medaris, and Betty Beamer was a huge gift.  They were instrumental in clarifying what follows:

As I left the church after a prayer session with Betty, I sensed the power of a presence.  The presence was Jesus.  There was no voice, no visual image, yet His power was such that I knew who He was, how tall He was, and that He was walking with me at my right side.  The experience was shocking but joyful.  I still remember this as if it were happening now.

A new door had been opened – I had been knocking.  My prayers had always been with Father God; now this would expand with understanding of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Books by the British author and Christian mystic Evelyn Underhill helped to clarify the visions, healing light, and dreams that began to appear.  The Lord in His loving way drew me out of my spiritual comfort zone into new dimensions.  The journey continues.

Message by Song

Joy Sutton

            My mother was very near death in the hospital.  I was at my sister's house.  At 3:00 a.m. I awoke and felt compelled to go to see her.  Not long after I arrived, some of the hospital staff began coming in to perform more senseless testing.  I convinced them that there was no point, and she would not want the tests done.  It was as though I had been sent to speak for her.  Her doctor came in later, and I explained to him why I had taken such action and that it was my mother's wish to join my dad who had passed away ten years earlier. 

            It was a hard day as she continued to decline.  I went back to my sister's house to get some rest and figure out what I should do.  It was a Friday and the first day of school was on Monday.  I was in TOTAL despair!  I thought no one else could handle the first day with my new class, and yet I didn't want to leave my mother.  Finally, I decided to return to Longwood.  I traveled home in one car while Jim, my husband, followed me in our other car.  As we were traveling, a blinding rainstorm began.  The turmoil in the outside world was reflecting what I was feeling inside.  I had my Jim Nabors' tape playing.  All of a sudden it stopped raining, and a ray of sunshine came through.  It was the exact moment that I heard him sing these words from his song, “I Can See Clearly Now”,

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,

I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)

Sun-shiny day.

I think I can make it now, the pain is gone

All of the bad feelings have disappeared

Here is the rainbow I've been prayin’ for

It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)

Sun-shiny day.

Look all around, there's nothin’ but blue skies

Look straight ahead, nothin’ but blue skies

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,

I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)

Sun-shiny Day

            I felt like these words had double meaning for me.  As soon as I got home, I called my mother's room to talk to the private nurse we'd hired.  No answer!  I called the nurse's desk and was told that my mother had passed away a short while ago...about the very same time I had heard those lyrics and had seen that ray of sun. 

            What a powerful and comforting message I had received.  I had no doubt but that the Holy Spirit was with me that day.