Personal Testimony: The Outback Angel

John 15:16

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

“You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.”

‭‭John‬ ‭15‬:‭16‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

This devotional is a personal testimony of God’s love and how He pursues His lost sheep. As readers of the Heaven on Wheels devotionals may have discerned, we were both lost in the wilderness of unbelief for quite a few years after being nominal believers in our youth (Lutheran, Catholic). The path back to redemption and discipleship of our Lord for both of us probably started with this encounter that still gives me chills. This is lengthy, so get yourself a coffee and get comfortable.

I remember a date quite vividly: December 3, 2006. It was a Sunday and the crazy holiday season was getting underway. Steve had flown out of town to teach a two-day class in Omaha, Nebraska on software requirements engineering; he was a part-time instructor at that time for a company called ASPE Technology and had one or two trips a month. I decided to go out to eat, being an exceptionally lazy person in the kitchen and would talk to Steve later after I got home (this was the year before Apple changed the world with the iPhone and text messages in those days were difficult to send and rarely used). Near our home, there is an Outback Steakhouse and we used to go there quite often, especially after we started to abandon a 20-year-long experiment with vegetarianism. The salmon was usually pretty good at Outback - we weren’t eating steaks again, but that came soon - and I settled into a tiny booth with my book (as I recall, it was something by Stephen King). I had my usual glass of wine and was enjoying my salad, salmon and baked potato, barely paying attention to my surroundings and other people in the restaurant. It was busy, but not as crazy as that Outback used to get on Friday or Saturday nights.

I glanced over at the larger table across from me and saw a family enjoying dinner together (father, mother, and two younger children). Back to the book. Maybe I’ll have another glass of wine! A few minutes later, the woman from the adjacent table was standing by my table. They were leaving, but she stood there looking at me awkwardly and seemed uneasy. She said, “I never do this kind of thing and I feel really crazy. But I have been told to tell you that God will be with you and will give you strength in the coming weeks.” She went on to inform me that God compelled her to speak to me (she was an fervent believer) and apparently she was glancing at me quite often before they got ready to leave working up her courage (I didn’t notice). I was completely taken aback. I finally found my voice and thanked her for the message. She smiled and touched my arm and said something like “bless you” and the family went on their way.

I was stunned…My mind had been sneaking back to thoughts about God on occasion and I realized that I still said prayers to Him, even if they were only prayers like “Keep Steve safe on this trip that he is taking”. I paid for my dinner and went home. Steve called to chat from his hotel and I told him this story. He was also stunned and we discussed this at length. Life continued, however, and the significance started to fade a little bit after I headed back to work for the week and Steve returned from his trip. The next Sunday, December 10, we went out to eat with my parents and Steve’s parents at a favorite Carabba’s restaurant. My Mom was always giving me little trinkets and this was no exception - as they got in our car, she handed me a cute Santa candle snuffer to use with my Christmas decorations (yes, we still did decorating even if we weren’t believers - we always had Christmas dinner at our house). Our rejection of church was a huge disappointment and sadness for my Mom, who was a passionate Lutheran. But I was stubborn Barb back in those days; I was an only child and seemed to always find ways to disappoint my parents, especially my Mom. I talked to my Mom later in the week, telling her about a short trip we had planned at the last minute to Las Vegas for New Year’s. Little did I know that that phone call was the last time I would talk to my Mom.

A week later, on Sunday, December 17, we had just finished dinner at home when we got a phone call from Windsor Gardens security (my parents lived at this large senior independent living complex in east Denver). I immediately thought of my Dad, who was 92 years old at the time and had gone through some serious health issues in recent years; my Mom was 79 and was the Energizer Bunny; in fact, on the night we went out to dinner, she laughed about how they were still “trucking along”, enjoying trips up to a nearby gambling town, Blackhawk, to waste a few dollars every week playing video poker. But the security representative told me that my MOM had been taken by ambulance to University Hospital and my Dad had gone with her. She had collapsed in the kitchen while putting something together for dinner and was unresponsive.

We got in the car and raced to University Hospital, at that time located in central Denver. We found a parking place and went into the ER and found my Dad. They were doing tests on my Mom and thought she might have had a small stroke. My Dad said that she was just fine, talking to him as she made a simple dinner, then turned around, couldn’t speak, and then suddenly collapsed into a chair and then onto the floor. We waited and watched from another room while they did some tests and she appeared to be responsive at that time. Suddenly, back in the main ER, she started having problems breathing and they made us leave so they could intubate her. It was all a blur after that. She was admitted and we found the waiting room near the ICU, waiting for her to show up. A cardiologist found us and said that she had likely suffered more than one stroke. They were planning to take her to the OR to do insertion of a probe to find and break up any clots. The doctor returned in the wee hours of the morning to tell us that the outlook was grim, but all we could do we was wait and watch.

To make a long story short (or longer) - My Mom never recovered consciousness. She was kept on a respirator at University Hospital for almost two weeks, fed some serious doses of opioids (including a new one at that time called Fentanyl) and they also had to install a shunt in her brain to bring down the pressure in her head. My Dad was devastated and could not believe this was happening to her. University Hospital then transferred her to St. Joseph Hospital (the main hospital for their healthcare plan) just before New Year’s. That hospital reduced the dosages of the medications, but she was still unresponsive, although her eyes were open. A doctor sat with us and said that she had had multiple strokes and a heart attack and was paralyzed and would likely never recover. He recommended removing the ventilator tube to see if she would start breathing on her own. What we saw ahead of us was likely a long stint in a nursing home, if there was any recovery. We agreed to the removal of the ventilator, which happened the morning of January 2, 2007. My Dad was at home resting and we got a phone call later that same day to hurry back to the hospital. We got there along with the pastor from their church and within thirty minutes she had passed away. Now I had to deal with my elderly (but super-sharp Dad) and get him through the funeral and our grief.

So normally I had great difficulty dealing with a family crisis like this and would get angry or weepy. Instead, I felt a reservoir of strength that came from “somewhere” and I was able to make rational decisions and be effective in dealing with the things that were going on. To add to the stress, a few days after my Mom went into the hospital, the Denver area started getting massive snowstorms every week for about six weeks, which made all of the driving around even more fun! God had promised strength, however, and He had delivered. While Mom was in University Hospital (and before the first crippling snowstorm), Steve and I walked across the street to a little Italian restaurant and ordered glasses of wine. We looked at each other in tears and decided that, in light of the Outback Angel incident and the subsequent events, these two scientific nerds would take Blaise Pascal’s Wager. Pascal was a 17th century philosopher, scientist and believer; we have since grown to understand the extreme scriptural limitations and foibles of this wager, but it IS a start:

The gist of the Wager is that, according to Pascal, one cannot come to the knowledge of God’s existence through reason alone, so the wise thing to do is to live your life as if God does exist because such a life has everything to gain and nothing to lose. If we live as though God exists, and He does indeed exist, we have gained heaven. If He doesn’t exist, we have lost nothing. If, on the other hand, we live as though God does not exist and He really does exist, we have gained hell and punishment and have lost heaven and bliss. If one weighs the options, clearly the rational choice to live as if God exists is the better of the possible choices. Pascal even suggested that some may not, at the time, have the ability to believe in God. In such a case, one should live as if he had faith anyway. Perhaps living as if one had faith may lead one to actually come to faith.

We followed through and actually went to church the next Sunday (an ELCA church, which we left in 2019 and are now very happy in a wonderful non-denominational church). I prayed a lot during those difficult weeks and always, always, always found strength. In fact, after the funeral, Steve had to travel out of town again and I was alone at home. I was in bed feeling lonely, crying and praying and suddenly felt strong, comforting arms around my shoulders. I know who that was and I cannot wait for another hug from our Lord in the next life!

My Dad lived another 18 months and we did as much with him as possible (trips, baseball games, concerts, etc.) until he became ill from leukemia and passed away in June, 2008. He was thrilled that we had come back to church and to God. God sought us out! He was persistent and found these two stubborn, proud, stupid, materialistic, doubting sheep and led us back to His green pastures (glory be to God!). I have other testimonials around my Dad’s illness that will be shared at a future time, so look for those.

My next series of devotionals will examine the beloved 23rd Psalm, verse by verse! Sheep belonging to the Good Shepherd love this comforting and familiar Psalm, although we may find a few things to learn.

The Pascal Wager definition is from a Christian site GotQuestions.org