One day in our lives we'll be asked to do a service, perhaps more than one time. These services are errands of mercy. They are so profound that you'll be surprised to find how critical your part might be.
We may be asked to observe an event; transcribe it; and live to tell the world about it.
Late one afternoon on March 6, 2014, a friend of mine who used to visit hospitals in South Florida brought to me a lead of a patient at stage 4 cancer. Even worse for the patient was the fact that the same hospital had done all that they were planning on doing for her. I recall being told that the patient was only days away from going to hospice at home.
My friend Anne found her crying in her room, all alone in the Rehab ward of the hospital. The nurse in attendance had asked Anne to please visit with this patient as an act of kindness. Anne was only responsible to see cancer patients in the Cancer ward and to pray for them.
Patricia, the name of the terminal patient, was forty-three years old. She was a mother of three young children, and had been divorced and abandoned by her husband. That's all that I knew about her life, and I didn't particularly care to do a vision for her. My hands were full with other patients. Besides, visions of healing for just about anyone take me at least thirty minutes and longer to do, from start to finish.
However, I felt compelled to help this person but against my better wishes. Anne had told me that when she had visited Patricia in her room, she looked amazingly well for her advance stage of cancer. Additionally, I felt drawn to Patricia by the number of fortuitous events that had led Anne to go and see her.
Patricia wasn't even in Anne's list of patients to visit that day; and it was only on the insistence of the floor nurse that Anne took the initiative to see her.
Two days later, I decided to ask Jesus if he would like to see Patricia and he agreed. He asked me to meet him at the hospital, and I left Atlanta in my spirit all the way to Kendall, Florida.
I walked into Patricia's room and I looked at her. I actually found her at peace. Perhaps she had finally resigned herself to her death.
Jesus came in and he went straight over to Patricia's bedside. He took her hand and held on to it for a while. The room was deeply silent, but mainly because Patricia was asleep and her breathing was very shallow. You couldn't even hear her breathe.
Jesus said to me, "Patricia has come pretty far with her cancer, but until she got serious about her health and illness she had neglected to see a doctor. I will heal her for the sake of her children, but she needs to speak with me first."
Jesus then invoked Patricia's spirit to come out of her body. She did, and without hesitation Jesus asked her, "Do you know why you were called?" She wouldn't answer. She remained silent looking straight at Jesus.
He asked her another question, "Do you know who I am?" She surprised me with her blunt answer, while I stood to one side of the room observing this encounter.
Her spirit finally answered Jesus when she said, "I do, but I just can't believe that you bothered to come to me. I pray and pray for my life, but I didn't expect any answers."
Jesus' response to Patricia was, "You have neglected your children many times because of your own bad habits (Jesus alluded to her drug issues in the past). Are you planning on becoming a good and clean mother to your children?"
Jesus didn't wait for an answer, and he followed up by telling her, "But I must warn you, any answer that you may give to me by the laws of Heaven the spirit cannot lie, so think carefully before you respond to me."
She prepared her answer well and then she said, "If you save my life, I will, and if I fail you please take my life. I will not cry if you should take me home, for I certainly don't deserve your kindness!"
"Patricia," Jesus said, "What I do for you today is for the sake of your children and not for you. You owe your life to your children. If you don't follow your words, you will betray your own family. So tell me Patricia, why should I heal you?"
Patricia regained her strength and courage and said to Jesus, "Dear Jesus, I know very well that I don't deserve your healing. I am fully aware of that! And I also know that I am very little to you. But worse people than me get chances. I just need a break. I don't have any options left to me. I've already been told of my future by the doctors, so you are my future. And if I am not grateful now, allow me to show my gratitude later."
Jesus didn't ask any more questions of Patricia. He took my hand and he proceeded to perform a healing for her.
After Jesus healed her body of the cancer that was killing her, he spoke these words for her benefit, "Patricia, I have healed you, now go in peace and sin no more."
He leaned over and kissed her forehead. She responded by saying to Jesus, "My Lord, thank you!"
Patricia is a woman of immense faith and courage. When she faced Jesus for the first time, she came to the realization that even if she wasn't worthy of a healing to miss this chance would have been fatal to her, and a great loss to her children.
Jesus knew all along that she needed to want to live for the sake of her children; otherwise, she wouldn't have appreciated Jesus' kind gesture of love. Her attitude was bad enough when she reproached Jesus for not having come sooner.
Patricia had given up on God. So, Jesus placed her children as the main reason for the healing that would spare her life. Her life hadn't been exemplary, but her dying wasn't the answer either. Not for her, and certainly not for her children who were the innocent ones and the victims in her case.
Perhaps the biggest lesson of this true story is to never give up on God, and definitely not on ourselves. If God wants us to continue to live, He'll send someone to visit with us.
The story of Patricia was told in her honor. I never met her, but her spirit came across as I tried to tell it.
There are many patients like Patricia in the world, forgotten and in hospital rooms all alone waiting and hoping against all hope for a miracle. She never pretended to deserve the presence of God, but God needed to help her in His own way.
I've been present to many visions of healing for people in desperate situations. I wish to tell their stories so that people learn how Jesus works his miracles every day.
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