The angel named Jeff

WOW.  God’s greatest gifts and surprises are always, ALWAYS, where we least expect them, but that’s what we have come to expect from Him.

Mike made it to church today, but it’s always a challenge for a man that has really no behind to sit on a narrow church bench, no matter how padded, and try to cram those long legs, both of which are injured, into the narrowness of space between where he’s sitting and the bench in front of him.  If you don’t believe in spiritual battle, we need to talk.  We have LIVED spiritual battle for years.  The closer Mike gets to God, the more brutal the spiritual battle is.  Satan isn’t going to go away and we have learned to spot the signs and recognize when we are about to enter into a total crap storm.  From the minute we hit the church parking lot I could see by his face that it was beginning.  It’s like a cloud comes down and he is scowling and anxious, uncomfortable.  As if he’s expecting the entire building to come crashing down around him.  I joined him in the sanctuary after I checked Ali into her classroom. 

I’ve been to many churches over the years.  It always amazes me that there are some churches you walk into and NO ONE even so much as glances at you, let alone comes up and introduces themselves to you.  It’s pitiful.  I can say without hesitation that there hasn’t been ONE single Sunday at this church that SOMEONE hasn’t come up and shaken our hands, welcomed us, chatted with us, prayed with us.  Simply being acknowledged is an amazing thing.  You feel like you belong.   Two years ago, during prayer time right before the message, a man two rows ahead of us stood up and came to crouch down next to Mike.

“I don’t know you, I don’t know your name, but I feel Him leading me to you to pray with you and over you.  He’s telling me to tell you not to worry, that things are coming that will test you to your very core and you won’t understand the reason and you won’t understand why, but God is going to use you and I want you to know He loves you and I want you to have peace.  Can we pray together?” 

THAT is this kind of church. 

Today was no different, people chatted with us, we chatted with others.  Everyone knows who Mike is because a) he’s REALLY hard to miss; b) he’s been on the church prayer roster for over nine months now and everyone knows who the guy with the wraps on his left leg is.  An amazing church full of people.  Hearts at this church are enormous.  Our pastor has such a heart for reaching out to Salem and Keizer’s lost and lonely.  He lost a child himself 7 or 8 years ago when his 16 year old son, Kevin, died instantly of a brain hemmorage.  When we were interviewing pastors while looking for a church (yes, we interview them.  You are looking for someone who will be responsible for ministering to your heart and soul, you bet we have a list of questions for them and you’d be even more surprised at how many we passed up because they were the emergent, ecumenical, “there are more ways than one to God” kind of pastors that pushed books by Rick Warren and thought “The Shack” was the second revelation after the Bible.  No thanks.)  Pastor Randy kindly came by the house and met with us, very simple man, but kind and direct, answered our questions, and assured us, you won’t find popular churchianity at Salem Evangelical.  You find God, you find God through His son, and that’s that.  Good enough for us.

So, we are sitting through the singing and the prayer portion and Mike is starting to squirm.  And get VERY restless.  He leans over to me and said, “I feel like CLAWS are raking up my skin graft.  I need to get out of here.”  That’s all I need to hear, he struggles to stand up and we are out the door of the sanctuary.  Mike’s legs are still so weak from having done NOTHING in the way of physically building them up the past three years and as he stepped out into the foyer his legs begin shaking and I’m only thinking one thing:  Clear out of here, everyone, the big man is going down and we are in for trouble.”  He’s gone down on his knees on me several times and it’s amazing how strong I suddenly become when I can catch him in time and keep the Titanic from going completely down.  Still, we are in a building of a ton of people, Mike HATES feeling any attention on him, and I’m praying like a mad woman that he’s just shaking them awake and he’s going to be alright.  Thank God he’s alright, now let’s find a place to sit down.  There?  No, chairs are too short.  There?  No, not yet.  We make our way to one of the entrances where there are smaller versions of the benches we just left and he makes his way over to one and sits down.  The look on his face was, “Where do I start?  Lord, why?  Why can’t I have my sight?  You have taken so much away from me already, why are you taking my sight?  Why won’t you let this warrior have his body back, the body that leapt from one second story house to another when I was building them, to the body that hauled glue-lams weighing 300 lbs. on my shoulders up a 12 foot ladder?  The body that took charge of inmates and the body that carried my wife over a threshold, the body that Alison fell asleep on every night for the first eight months of her life after I’d get home from work?  You have taken it all, and yes, granted, I asked you to use me two weeks before August 1, I  get that.  Buy why now my eyes?  Why does there always have to be a battle raging around me?”  I was pissed that once again, Mike had to leave a service, feeling like the enemy won.

I knew that anything I would think of to say would be totally useless.  Sometimes the best things a woman can say is NOTHING.  I believe we women already say way too much as it is.  We need a shut-off valve like the ones on air compressors when we don’t know how to just shut up.  Just hold his hand, let him know you’re beside him, but that quiet exchange often says more than a string of meaningless words you utter simply to make yourself feel better, feel like YOU are doing something, when all the words do is confuse and clutter up more.  So, I held his hand, the tears start dripping down my face, and I felt so incredibly useless.  I can’t do a thing except hold his hand and just be there.

And then he comes around the corner.  God sent an angel.  The angel’s name is Jeff and he’s about Mike’s age, maybe a few years older, Hawaiian, and to look at him, he’s the picture of health and vitality.  He saw Mike’s face, pained and anguished and searching and that was all he needed.  He walked up to Mike and put his hand on Mike’s shoulder.

“Brother, what can I do for you?”

Salem Evangelical, during services, has a constant flow of people walking out in the hallways and foyers, watching who comes in and out, making sure no one loiters or comes in hoping to walk around unnoticed. Jeff is one of those people that patrols.   There are a ton of kids at this church, and they are VERY protected.  It is also a heavily armed church, and not by request of the pastor.  This is done completely on a volunteer basis of the members and they are SERIOUS about protecting our right to worship without the threat of violence.  If you come into that building for any other reason other than to worship the living God and fellowship with your brothers and sisters, you picked the wrong church on the wrong day.  Pastors get threats all the time and if you don’t believe me, wow, have I got stories for you.  They do, and since there are many Salem Police and OSP Corrections officers that attend SEC, you are walking the one building in our area on Sunday where if you charge the pulpit, IF you aren’t crushed by the amount of bodies pig-piling on you, you’ll wind up on the end of a bullet, because we protect our church and the pastor.  Anyway, forgive that little rabbit trail I got off on.

The angel named Jeff.  I know with all my heart that God led us right to that bench and I also know with all my heart that Jeff was going to be led by God right past that bench.  He saw the battle going on by looking at Mike’s face.  He listened as Mike poured it all out.  Everything.  The diabetes.  The nec/fac.  The blindness.  The knee surgeries.  Everything.  How can I provide for and protect my family?  Why does He take away everything I have?  It’s one thing for me to tell Mike that I’m sharing his story with literally thousands of people online and I have heard from so many people telling me, “Reading your husband’s story has given me strength to keep pushing through my battle.  Thank you for showing me God in his life.”  All the time I hear this and THAT is what we have asked Him to use us for—as a voice to share God’s miracles and to tell people, “Yes, this life stinks on ice, but this life is a vapor.  Let me tell you about eternity and then we will ask you to come with us!”  God is so very good!

And then Jeff began to speak.  Guess what?  He’s a diabetic.  Guest what?  He battles testosterone, edema (swelling through retaining water).  Your eyes are failing you?  My kidneys lost 1/3 their function just LAST WEEK!  He is going through his grocery list of the same issues Mike is and every time he said something, he followed up with, “Brother, I am walking this same walk with you—I KNOW how this feels!”  He prayed with us.  We rejoiced that there was another man that could IDENTIFY with Mike, that knew the struggle, the pain, the feeling of the entire world leaving you behind and all you have are your ailments as your body falls apart and no one knows how afraid you truly are. 

By this time, there’s nothing ladylike about me—my nose is running and I have Niagara Falls running down my face and I look up to Mike and WHOA, NELLY………

PEACE.  Absolute peace.  The tension has left his body, he’s lost that pinched look.  Relaxed.   Everything about him said, “God, I needed an angel and you sent Jeff to talk to me.”   I still cannot wrap my mind around how peaceful he looked.  There was a need and God met it.  Not just with a flowery quotation or a pat on the back.  No, someone REAL and tangible and so honest that he opened up and told us all his body’s frailties and that was how he identified with Mike. 

The phone at the greeting desk rang and he had to answer it so he ran about 10 feet away.  I looked at Mike.

“Your angel.  Jeff was your angel.”  Mike nodded.  No words, just nodded with a soft smile.

Jeff returned and apologized that he had to run off but wanted to get our number so he could follow up.  Mike walked on out to the truck and I caught Jeff coming back from the source of the phone call.  He gave me his number and a hug and said, “You have the big man call me.  We are not done talking!” 

I believe the ONLY thing better than having that angel appear to you to offer you God’s heart is when YOU are the person God chooses to be the angel.  It’s like your love tank is just topped off.  It feels so good to minister to someone in desperate need, and today Mike was in desperate need.  How totally like God to just at that PERFECT time send that PERFECT person to give to you exactly what you needed.  Mike needed to see God’s face and feel God’s love, and oh, how he did in such a PERFECT way. 

Just one of the uncountable reasons I love God SO much.