I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS

While serving as a hospital chaplain in Miami, FL, on one of my daily rounds I walked into an inpatient room at the prestigious Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and introduced myself to a newly arrived patient.  I introduced myself, and after only a few sentences she suddenly looked me in the eyes and said, “You must be a real man of God.” While it didn’t embarrass me, it did make me feel very humble. I smiled told her that I was happy to be a born again believer. Then she said, “I knew it! Just by the way you talk, I could tell you were a real Christian.” That quickly told me that often people see us for what we are, not necessarily who we are.

We chatted some more and she told me about her situation and how she was trusting God for healing and wanted to get well so she could continue serving her church like she had been doing for years. In accordance with the hospital rules of not asking patients if we could pray with them, I thanked her for the visit and started to leave. But she stopped me and asked if I could have a word of prayer with her, which is fine under the rules. We held hands and began to pray. The presence of the Holy Spirit instantly became very real in that room as we prayed. You could feel the power of the Holy Spirit all around the bed. When we finished, this precious child of God kept saying; “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus!”

About that time the woman in the next bed who observed everything that went on, asked in a rather timid and quivering voice, “Can I have that Jesus too?” My heart leaped, and the woman I just prayed with jumped out of bed. We went over, and taking the woman’s hands began to pray with her. When we finished her face was bright with joy and she thanked us repeatedly. We all felt so good that I didn’t want to leave the room to finish my rounds.

Through this I learned to never be ashamed when asked to express my faith and love for God in prayer, whether it was in a hospital, restaurant, or on an airplane. When I share this testimony I tell others that You never know when it just may touch someone who only knows about Jesus, but after they hear you pray they want to know Him personally. Don’t do it in pride, but in humility, knowing that Jesus our high priest gives us the freedom to enter God’s throne room of grace and mercy in His name, at an hour of any day. By so doing, you may be the light in the darkness that someone who is lost there has been looking for a long, long time.