“Now for a brief time God, our God, has allowed us, this battered band, to get a firm foothold in this holy place so that our God may brighten our eyes and lighten our burdens as we serve out this hard sentence.” (Ezra 9:8, The Message)
This Holy experience I want to share with each of you. For Pentecostals, this was truly a Pentecostal experience. I don’t know what others may say, think, or call it; all I can be certain of is that this experience will sustain me for many years to come.
It was the last patient of the day, and I almost didn’t go and see the man because he was in such agony. They had been unable to contain his pain that was secondary to palative back surgery that was secondary to metastasized cancer. He had been unable to be moved without screaming, due to his pain, and wanted to just be left alone by everyone. His prognosis is extremely poor and death is imminent. I decided to see him, against his spoken request to the nurse to be left alone, in hopes that prayer might work where medication had not.
I entered the room, and he was lying very still and taking very short, gasping-type breaths. His pain was obvious! I introduced myself and acknowledged his pain and sickness. He was obviously not an American, and I asked him his nationality (this is not something I have ever asked before, and I am not sure why I asked it this time). He told me he was from South America. I asked him what brought him to America, and he told me he had worked his whole life as an international salesman for a locally based company, and they had moved him to America to be closer to their corporate headquarters.
I was about to offer prayer when he asked me what faith I was. When I told him I was Pentecostal, he asked me if I was 'what kind of Pentecostal' (my thoughts at this point – this guy must know a bit about Pentecost). He was familiar with my tradition and stated that he had helped start Pentecostal missions for all over his home country. He began to talk about the wonder of his work and the importance of the changing power of Pentecost in people’s lives. While he did not consider himself a preacher, his money and contacts were able to start countless missions in the jungles. It is his most rewarding legacy. He seemed to light up as he talked about this work.
It is important that you remember that through all of this he is making small, gasping breaths to try and control his pain. Each whispered word jarred his body and heightened his pain. I wanted to stop him, but there was something therapeutic in his talking about his love for the work of God. There was something pure and holy in this dying old man, who had taken over the entire conversation.
At some point in his talk about his love for the work of God, a change began to take place, and if I might be so bold, it seemed as if angels began to lift up this man and gave him strength. His whispered words of pain became stronger, and it was as if he had become free from the bonds of the world. He began to speak as a prophet and began to speak into my life words of life, hope, and strength. He began to speak out about my ministry as a hospital chaplain and to confirm God’s call and anointing in the path that I am walking. He identified my fears, doubts, and obstacles that would have been impossible for him to know. He assured me that God would go with me, provide for me, and that God had a great work for me to do that would include a harvest of many souls.
After about ten minutes of speaking into my life and story, he reached out his thin, frail arms and laid his hands upon me. He spent another five minutes speaking in tongues and praying for me, asking God for His anointing and blessing upon my life and ministry. God’s presence seemed to flood into the place as he prayed. Surely we had found a holy place together in the presence of God. As the patient prayed loudly and boldly, I began to speak quietly in tongues as an almost physical anointing poured over me, warming me from head to toe.
Spent, the old man collapsed back in the bed, once again gasping small breaths of pain. We sat there together silently for a while, and then he said, “Maybe God has let me live to this point that I might do this one thing more before I die!” Tears were rolling down my face, and I did not know what to say. The only thing I could think was that neither my CPE training nor my education had prepared me for this experience. When I finally turned to leave the room, the one-on-one nurse was standing there wide-eyed in the doorway. When she saw my tears, she quickly turned away and made herself appear busy. These words seem inadequate to describe this experience, but if I live another fifty years, I will not forget this experience.
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