One night a number of years ago, I received a phone call from my father. He was quite troubled with his voice shaking; he told me that he had admitted my mother to the hospital. Upon asking what had happened, he replied that she was very sick and in a lot of pain. Later we would discover that she had a blockage in her colon due to advanced colon cancer. The reason for my sharing this testimony is what happened to my mother during that fitful night. Mom was an amazing woman with a heart of gold; truly she was my inspiration and a continual source of encouragement. However, she battled one very powerful problem, fear! Fear is what had kept her from going to the doctor sooner, and fear was something that often pounded on the door of her mind.

Lying on her bed in the hospital, her mind was a beehive of activity as anxious thoughts whirled around. Fear was rising bringing her close to the point of panic, what was going to happen, would she die, would she be all right. Instinctively she knew something serious was wrong, but how wrong? The next day she shared with me over the phone how an orderly, “a very kind young man” as she put it, had come into her room to check on her. Upon entering the room, he called her name and said “Mrs. Williams there is no reason to be afraid, you are going to be fine”, after saying that she said he just looked at her with the kindest face and immediately every fear left. She slept soundly in a state of peace. She went on to say, “Billy, there was just something about him, I had to know who he was so when the nurse came in to see me in the morning I asked about the kind young man who was working the night before. Her reply astounded me as she said, Mrs. Williams we did not have a male orderly on shift last night.”

For the remaining days of my mother’s life she was convinced that God had sent an angel to speak to her ‘peace in the midst of her greatest storm’.

Bill Williams pastorbill@pagweb.org