Miracles (26 page)

Emotion caught his words and twisted his face, and he cleared his throat. “We were buried together, under three floors of rubble. We thought we were going to die, but God had other plans.” He broke down and couldn't go on.

Carl stepped up to the microphone. “A fire broke out near Andy, and he had a lot of smoke inhalation, wrecking his vocal cords and his lungs. Bree had something shatter into her eyes, and she was blinded. My legs were crushed into what felt like a zillion pieces.” He held out his arms. “We have documented proof. X-rays. Paramedics who treated us. Doctors and nurses. But look at us now.”

A slow applause started over the room, and Carl stepped back from the pulpit. Bree took the baton.

“Once we were healed, we felt we needed to give God our best in return, so we've been going out for the past two days, under the power of the Holy Spirit, and He took us to places we ordinarily wouldn't have gone. We met an elderly woman who'd had a stroke and was lying helpless on the floor. We met a woman who'd been abused by a violent husband. We met an alcoholic. We met a man whose pregnant wife had just lost their baby. We met a family who'd just buried their wife and mother.”

She looked out over the congregation, and saw Sarah Manning sitting among several members. She was getting more comfortable with the crowds. Dr. John Fryer sat on the second row, his Bible open in his lap. Sam Jones sat near the back, all alone. And Lawrence Grisham sat in the center of the room, his somber children on either side of him.

“I'm different now.” Bree struggled to keep her voice steady. “I don't just look past your faces anymore. I see
into
them. I see people who are hurting, people who need help, people who need the Lord. I can't get to them all, and neither can Carl or Andy. We did a lot together, but we need help. We need
your
gifts, all of them.”

Andy nodded and stepped up to the mike again. “This morning, the Lord led me to a passage in Romans 12.”

Bree caught her breath and gaped at him. That was what she had read!

“I don't believe it,” Carl whispered next to her. “I read that same passage.”

Andy opened his Bible and started to read. “‘For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.' I think He wanted us to tell you that we have the gifts we need, as long as we all use them together.”

Bree's eyes were full of tears when she moved next to Andy. “We all have gifts,” she said. “Every one of us who's in Christ. Supernatural gifts, powered by the Holy Spirit.”

Carl moved to stand on the other side of Andy. “There are lots of people out there hurting. Even before the earthquake, they were all around us. We just have to start looking . . . seeing . . . listening . . . going . . . telling . . .”

“Since the earthquake, it's going to be worse,” Andy said. “People need the Lord more than ever, and that means they need us. Pastor Jim told us that he wanted us to have a spiritual triage unit here, where the wounded and broken-hearted can come for help and healing.
This
should be the place where people know they'll find Jesus.”

The crowd sprang to their feet, applauding the task before them . . . and the One who had equipped them to fulfill it.

18

W
HEN THE SERVICE ENDED, THE TRIO FOUND themselves surrounded by members who wanted to help with the spiritual triage, who just needed someone to point them in the right direction.

Bree saw Sam Jones—the man whose wife had lost their baby—through the crowd, quietly waiting to talk to them. Bree excused herself from the conversation she was engaged in and made her way to him.

“Hi, Sam. It's good to see you back tonight.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Who would have thought I'd go to church twice in one day?”

“Maybe soon you can bring your wife.”

He smiled. “That's what I wanted to talk to you about.” He slid his hands into his pockets and swallowed hard. “I was wondering if you guys would mind coming home with me to talk to my wife tonight? She's there with her sister, and she's still really depressed. She needs some hope . . . that maybe she'll see our baby again someday. That she'll get through this. That there's light in the darkness.”

“Of course we'll come,” Bree said. “Just let me tell the guys.”

He blinked back the moisture in his eyes. “Thanks, Bree.”

She cut back through the crowd, and as she did so, someone caught her arm. She turned and saw Camille Jackson, a long-time member who'd buried her six-year-old daughter a year ago, after a tragic car accident. “Hi, Camille.”

Camille's mouth trembled. “Bree, I know you're busy, but I was so moved by what you said tonight. And I want to help. I've been steeped in grief for the past year, but there were dear church members who helped me through it. And now I'm ready to help somebody else.”

Bree's spirit swelled. The Holy Spirit was at it again.

“One of you mentioned that you'd ministered to a man whose pregnant wife had lost her baby. I was thinking that maybe I could help with that.”

Bree's heart tugged between laughter and tears. “Oh, Camille. We're going to talk to her tonight. Would you come with us?”

Her face slowly brightened, and her lips stretched into a smile. “Yes, of course I will. Let me go tell my family.”

Bree began to laugh as she watched Camille hurry back through the crowd.

“What's so funny?”

Dabbing her eyes, she turned to find Andy behind her. “The Holy Spirit is still doing supernatural works. He doesn't need us to have superhuman skills.” She swallowed and drew in a deep breath. “Andy, we have an appointment tonight with Sam Jones's wife and sister-in-law. And Camille Jackson is coming with us.”

They found Sharon Jones curled up in a recliner with a blanket over her. Shadows made half circles under her eyes, and grief seemed to have cast a pale pallor over her skin.

She wasn't in the mood for company. Her sister, Shelly, bustled around trying to make the home hospitable as the four of them filed in behind Sam and squeezed together on the couch.

Sam knelt next to her. “Honey, I know you don't feel like talking, but I'm worried about you, and I think these people can help.”

Andy leaned forward and cleared his throat. He had rehearsed his speech all the way over, but as he opened his lips to speak, Camille jumped in.

“Sharon, I lost my little girl a year ago. I think I know something of what you're going through.”

Sharon straightened instantly, and that glazed look in her sad eyes faded. Her eyes locked onto Camille's face. “You did? How old was she?”

“She was six. She was hit by a car when she ran out of the yard to chase a ball.” Camille had trouble getting the words out, and the pain on her face reflected that on Sharon's.

Sharon nodded. “People think that since my baby hadn't been born, since I hadn't held him alive in my arms, hadn't heard his voice, hadn't lived with him at home, that it wasn't like losing a real child.”

“I don't think that,” Camille whispered. “He was your baby, and you had your heart invested in him. You felt every kick, every movement. You heard his heart beating at every doctor visit.”

Sharon started to cry. “I saw him sucking his thumb on the ultrasound.”

Camille wiped her own tears. “I know. He was your son, and you're going to hurt for a long time.”

Sharon brought the blanket up to cover her face as she wilted. Camille got up and knelt beside Sharon's chair, stroking her hair. “Are you going to have a funeral for your baby?”

Sharon sucked in a sob and looked at her husband. “My mother thinks it's a bad idea. That it would be too painful. That it would drag things out. But I want to have one. I want to honor his little life. I want to have a place I can go . . .”

“You could still have one,” Camille said. “I think it would be nice. I think it would help you a lot. I'll help you plan it if you want.”

Andy looked at Bree and Carl, and Bree understood his silent message: They weren't really needed here. There was little they could add. Camille was the one Sharon needed now.

When the time was right, they left Camille talking to Sharon, and Sam walked them to the door. “I don't know how to thank you. She's been closed up ever since it happened. I didn't even know she wanted a funeral. For a stranger to come here and love her like that, to bond with her in such a way . . . I just don't know what to think.”

“Think the obvious,” Andy said. “Think that the Lord loves you and Sharon so much that He sent the only person in our church who knew exactly what to say.”

As they got back into the car, all three of them still struggled with the emotion constricting their throats. Finally, Andy managed to speak.

“You know, I went there with every intention of sharing the plan of salvation with her. Of closing the deal. Helping them pray the prayer. But the Holy Spirit taught me something I didn't expect.”

“Me too,” Bree said. “He taught us that we have to love first. That's what hurting people respond to.”

Carl nodded. “It doesn't take fancy-shmancy sales tactics for people to come to Christ. They'll be drawn to Him automatically if we just love them. Who isn't drawn by love?”

19

S
EVERAL OF THE CHURCH MEMBERS HAD EXPRESSED a desire to help May by cleaning up her house, stocking her cabinets, cooking some meals, and doing repairs on her house, so the trio headed to the hospital to ask her for the key. They were still pensive and quiet as they rode the elevator to her floor.

May's door was pulled almost shut, so Bree raised her hand to knock. But then she heard voices in the room and pushed the door slightly open to see if she was interrupting anything.

Dr. John Fryer sat next to May's bed, a Bible in his lap, reading from the book of Matthew. Sarah sat on the other side of the bed, holding the old lady's hand, and soaking in every word.

Bree knocked.

“Come in, come in!” May grinned at the trio. “All my new friends. The Lord is so good.”

The sight of three to whom they'd ministered, ministering now to each other, filled Bree with such poignant feelings that she didn't trust her voice. “How are you, May?”

May reached up to hug her. “I'm wonderful. How could I not be?”

Andy and Carl hugged her too. “We don't want to interrupt this Bible study,” Andy said. “But May, some of the church members wanted to bring food to your house and do some cleaning and repair work. We wanted to get your permission.”

“Well, of course. Those dear people. They must have known I'd be going home tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Bree looked at Dr. John.

“I'm releasing her tomorrow, since I know that Sarah's going to be there to help her at home. She'll have to come back every day for physical therapy, but Sarah has committed to getting her here.”

Sarah smiled. Her countenance was so different than what they'd seen in her just days earlier. “I'll take real good care of her.”

“I know you will,” Bree said.

Carl clapped his hands. “Well, that means that the food and help is coming in the nick of time. Would you give us a key so we could let them in tonight? Some of the members are all set to get busy.”

May smiled over at Sarah. “I gave my key to Sarah, but she could go with you and let you in. Sarah, you run along with them, honey, and you supervise. One of us needs to be there to thank those darling folks.”

Sarah left with them, her still-bruised face glowing. They drove over to May's house and saw that several cars already waited in front of her yard. Sarah let them in and accepted a hug from each person as they bustled in, joy and peace pulsating from them as they set about to work for the Lord by loving Sarah and May.

Bree, Carl, and Andy worked until after eleven that night. They were the last to leave, but as they looked around at the house that had been so dusty and drab before the church members had cleaned it up, they knew it would provide a sweet welcome home to May tomorrow. Sarah bustled around as if she'd already made herself at home, excited that she could now begin to pass the love she'd found on to someone else.

Bree was sure the guys were as tired as she by the time they left the house. As they got into the car, they saw headlights approaching them. The car slowed down next to theirs, and Andy looked in the window.

Lawrence Grisham, the man who'd buried his wife earlier that day, sat behind the wheel. “I was hoping I'd catch you. After church tonight, I heard about the lady who lives here. Some of the members were making plans to help her. I would have come sooner, but it took me a long time to get the kids to bed tonight. Their grandparents are at the house now, so I wanted to run over and offer some help.”