You know those emails that circulate at the office sometimes, or that friends post on social media from time to time – those sentimental stories? Well this is one I received this past week, and because it brought something to my remembrance of what I had personally walked through a few years ago, many years ago now, I wanted to share it and my story with you…
MOM'S EMPTY CHAIR
A woman's daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her mother. When the minister arrived, he found the woman lying in bed with her head propped up on two pillows, an empty chair sat beside her bed. The minister assumed that the woman had been informed of his visit... ‘'I guess you were expecting me’, he said. ‘No, who are you?’ said the mother. The minister told her his name and then remarked, ‘I saw the empty chair and I figured you knew I was going to show up...’
‘Oh yeah, the chair,’ said the bedridden woman. ‘Would you mind closing the door?’ Puzzled, the minister shut the door. ‘I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter,’ said the woman. ‘But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head... I abandoned any attempt at prayer,’ the old woman continued, ‘until one day four years ago; my best friend said to me, “Prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here is what I suggest. Sit down in a chair; place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised, ‘I will be with you always’... Then just speak to him in the same way you're doing with me right now...” ‘So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm.’
The minister was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old woman to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with her, anointed her with oil, and returned to the church. Two nights later the daughter called to tell the minister that her mama had died that afternoon. ‘Did she die in peace?’ he asked. ‘Yes, when I left the house about two o'clock, she called me over to her bedside, told me she loved me and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found her. But there was something strange about her death. Apparently, just before Mom died, she leaned over and rested her head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?’ The minister wiped a tear from his eye and said, ‘I wish we could all go like that.’
This story touched me because I remember one time that I actually did this; pulled up a chair to the table and asked Jesus to sit with me because I so needed His help. It was at a time when I was going through a crisis of obedience to what I believed that the Lord was leading me to do – write a letter of forgiveness to someone very close to me. I remember thinking, ‘Lord I know that you are with me always, but how I wish I could just see you sitting on a chair next to me and that I could talk to you just like I would with a close friend. I can’t do what you are asking me to do without Your help.’
Here I was at the table with the paper ready and pen in hand; my obedience to His word to me had gotten me that far, but it was so difficult! How would I find the words, make them the right words and make them sincere words that truly came from the heart?
So I pulled up a chair next to me and talked, poured out my heart and asked for my Friend Jesus to sit next to me and help me write this letter. The more I wrote, the more my own heart was healed of the brokenness I had felt for many years. When the letter was finished I knew that truth was contained in the words that were on the page, the truth that I had truly forgiven all by the grace and ability that God had given me to do so. My Helper and my Counselor was indeed with me.
I mailed the letter, which again was hard to do because I was thinking ‘What will they think? Will they understand? Or will I be crushed again?’ I am so thankful to be able to say that through that letter God worked a healing in the brokenness of the other person too and that that person and I became close, as God had always intended for us to be.
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