By Michael M. Murray

Anne slowly stepped from her car and sat down with her Bible at the familiar park picnic table on a warm spring morning.

She looked at the sun peeking around a cloud, the trees, the distant hill and the morning dew before closing her eyes. Nearby, robins and the rushing river played background music.

Before opening the worn Bible, she prayed:

“Lord, much of the world doesn’t know you. Deep hurts and broken relationships drive them from you or blind them. Self-effort sits high on the throne. Please forgive me for the many times I put myself in first place with you low on my priority list.

“Some of my children and the grandchildren are troubled by you. You seemingly remain invisible. They don’t see your handiwork in the air, the sunlight, the mountains, the scurrying squirrel, or the newborn that just emerged from his mother’s womb.

“Friends and neighbors question you because you don’t intervene and protect people from vicious physical or verbal attacks. To them, you seem oblivious or indifferent to the evil that persists in our world.

“I know you care and you love your creation. How do I tell them that this is not the world you planned? We fail you and each other every day.

“Let me be your light shining through me. Let me somehow – feeble though I am – be your hands, your feet, your words, your embrace. Help me to love as you love.”

And then she opened the Bible to this passage: Matthew 16:24-26.

“Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?’ “

Anne began to weep.

“Jesus, forgive for when I haven’t died to my self focus. I get caught up with what needs done and what I didn’t finish. Please help me remain fixed on you even in the busyness of life. Teach me to trust you to lead me on the right paths. Help me yield to you and your perfect ways.”

For the next several minutes, she read through Matthew 25 and then meditated on this passage: Matthew 25:35-36:

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

God then gave her a fresh gift of memories like:

The first date with her late husband, Carl – that wide wing by the lake.

When she first rocked their son Patrick in her ams in their modest starter home.

The joy of teaching Madeline how to read at Project Learn.

That afternoon she painted a new bedroom with a mother who would later own a Habitat for Humanity Home.

Sweet talks and roller coaster thrills with Beth – her “little” through Big Brothers & Big Sisters.

The medical rides she gave her friend Sam who fought colon cancer as best he could.

The scary day five years earlier when she broke up a fight between two teens after one bullied the other.

That tall beer bottle she took from her friend Diane in the drug house and the tearful alcoholism conversation they had in a park after the loving confrontation.

Her first Bible study at the women’s prison.

The water filters she shared with people in Guatemala.

Those men she prayed with in the AIDS clinic.

The heavy piece of metal she miraculously lifted when that building collapsed during her walk (and the day Larry walked out of the hospital after she helped rescue him).

When she befriended Stephen that evening at a Youth for Christ neighborhood hangout. Wearing a red dress, he was a teen born a boy and longing to be a girl. She waved at him a few years later at a Meet Santa community Christmas event (Stephen wore a blouse and skirt while registering the guests).

The Thursday all night shifts where she prayed and sang with and John and Kelly in a former movie theater lobby – a weekly commitment that lasted seven months.

The long conversations she had with Michelle at the hospice home for the poor. Anne couldn’t make out most of the words Michelle said with a constant smile – MS robbed her fragile body of mobility. Death lurked around the corner, perplexed about why it was taking so long for his entrance.

The 50th anniversary vow renewal ceremony on the beach with Carl four months before his heart failed.

The many times she stunned art festival people who wandered into her photography booth. One woman dying from ALS held Anne’s framed 36×24 valley sunrise.

“Lord, I didn’t always see or sense you,” she said. “But you were there in every moment. You always are.”

And in her mind, she heard God’s quiet still voice like some other times through the decades. Today, he whispered:

“I am preparing a place for you – your forever home filled with love.”

His assurance embraced her in a distinctive, authentic way that only faith – not science – can prove.

Grateful, she returned to her Bible and read the story of Philip in Acts 8:26-40.

Anne pondered the possibilities of Acts 8:39-40:

“When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.”

And suddenly, she was on her way…