The first time I spoke with Helen it was not face to face. We communicated through her locked security front door. Helen told me she’d had a stroke some thirteen years earlier, leaving one side of her body paralyzed and she was now confined to a wheelchair. But on that particular day she was in bed and not able to come to the door. So I gave her the reason for my visit and then asked her if she believed in Jesus Christ. She said she had very strong doubts, but was in any case, “not really interested in religion.” I told her that we had something in common, because, “neither am I.”
Through the security door I gave her a brief distinction between authentic Christianity versus man’s religion and Helen seemed to listen quietly and intently, giving an open ear to what was being said. Basically I told her that Christianity is God reaching out to us and that man’s religion is the exact opposite. It was not convenient to continue communicating in that manner however, so I decided that it would be better to come back and speak with her face to face. It was in the month of December so I asked if she would like me to call back early in the new year and she said, “by all means.”
It was the second week of January when I called again. Once again the security door was locked but this time Helen told me to let myself in with a key which was hidden nearby. Doing so, I met her sitting in her wheelchair in the kitchen. Looking to be somewhere in her late seventies, she told me she was a widow, having lost her husband two years earlier, an ex-Roman Catholic and confused about life in general, but certainly more so now that she was on her own in wheelchair confinement. I could see she was also riddled with arthritis and as a result, she had limited arm, hands and finger movements.
In spite of her problems Helen was a very easy lady to talk with. She questioned the purpose of life with its trials and sufferings telling me that she doubted God’s existence, believing that the world would be otherwise, if He did exist. I asked her why she thought that would be the case and she replied, “Well, He would intervene and put a stop to it all.” I responded by saying that God has intervened in a major sense through the sending of His Son Jesus into the world, but that there is a day up ahead when He will come again to put a stop to it all.
She told me her memories of growing up in her church were those of the priest filling them with fear and guilt if they dared to question, or disobey the church’s teachings. As such, her concept of God, if He did exist, was that of a dictator, “just like those priests.” Helen is not the first person to see God as being like a dictatorial religious father, minster or priest and she was truly blessed when I told her that the best picture we could possibly get of Him, was through studying the nature and character of Jesus Christ. I then briefly described that nature and character.
I said to Helen that God is not like any human religious leader, He is like Jesus Christ and, “Christ Himself wants so desperately to confirm that for you.” Due to that faulty concept Helen had of God, she found it difficult to believe the God I was sharing with her from the Scriptures. I told her she was in grand company with such difficulty, because that’s exactly what we see in the gospels with His followers. They too were brought up under heavy religious burdens – so heavy that they were unable to bear them – getting no relief from their leaders either, who according to Jesus, ” wouldn’t lift a finger to help.”
In the three hours I was with her, Helen liked what she was hearing, so I told her that is why the word “gospel” means “good news.” I told her that Jesus came to set us free – spiritually, mentally and morally, and that when He returns, this freedom will include a new body – one without paralysis and arthritis or any other sickness. She then asked me if the Bible was a trustworthy book, saying that in her church days she was lead to believe that it wasn’t. She was taught that it could only be understood, “by what the priests tell us.” I simply replied by saying that viewpoint contradicts the Bible itself.
Helen continued to welcome me as I visited with her over the next few months and we built a great friendship. One day she told me that the arthritis had moved to her neck, giving increased discomfort, so I prayed for her and she said, “your prayer helped me a lot.” I reminded her that it was the reality of God ministering to her and she agreed. Soon after that she said she was ready to pray and ask the Lord to enter into her life as Lord and Saviour. When we did so, once again Helen told me she that she felt His presence as being very real, giving a wonderful peace within.
By now God was making Himself increasingly real to her and she asked me one day to go and pray for her brother-in-law who was dying of cancer, “but his wife won’t acknowledge it.” I did visit, but Helen was correct, his wife wouldn’t allow me to disturb him because he was doped up with drugs.
Then eighteen months from that first visit, Helen was told she was no longer able to live in her own home, that she would have to sell and move into a nursing home. This was devastating news for her accept. It had been the family home for well over forty years and to have to now leave was traumatic for her, not to speak of the stress she had to go through in dealing with ambitious real estate agents putting it on the market etc. In fact she never got over it, it broke her heart.
Helen was not happy in the nursing home. She understood every one’s best intentions for her, but moving from the family home to a small bedroom, communal dining room, communal living room etc, was a cultural shock for her. She struggled with the reality of herself, sound in mind but trapped in a diseased, paralyzed body having to live with so many old people who’s minds were unsound, some almost childlike.
One day I walked up to Helen who was sitting in a chair, and she said, “What’s the matter with your eyes.?” I asked her what it was she was seeing and she said, “They are positively glowing.” I responded by saying that this was Jesus’ way of showing her and confirming to her that in spite of her circumstances, He would never leave her and that she would continue to experience the reality of His presence and peace in that place. On subsequent visits, Helen gave witness to the truth of that.
I called on another day to find her very down in her spirit. She was saddened by the recent death of a home-nurse’s child who was killed in a car crash, plus the death of her brother-in-law. We spoke for two hours and towards the end she said, “I think I will die very soon too.” I had been thinking the same thing as well, for some period of time. My only response was to ask, “Helen, if that were so, where would you go?” She said, “I would go straight to Jesus.” It was a blessing for me to inform her, that if what she said (her death) were true, then she would be more alive than she had ever been.
A few weeks later I visited again. I walked into Helen’s room, but it was empty. I knew that she was now experiencing the reality of life after death and as such there was no more pain, sickness, sadness or death for her to experience. The promises of Christ for Helen were now fulfilled. “……and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying; and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:3-4.