Because I want to get right into this I’m going to give you
that detailed account of answered prayer first.
I was not raised a Christian and had never gone to church.
As I look back at that now I realize the only Biblical theology I had was whatever
you get in Christmas Carols. I had heard of a baby born in a manger but I had
never heard the gospel.
On occasion people would yell out, “Jesus loves you” because
I was attending high school in a large city or I would hear, “Jesus died for
you” and that is the total extent of what I knew. Now this is weird: I thought
I knew what the Bible said but that was delusion. That was a lie. I had zero
idea of what it said because I had never read it. I hated Christians without cause. I learned
later when I did read the Bible that Jesus said that would happen. He taught us
that they hate Him without cause and the same would happen to His followers. He
was right. I had absolutely no reason to hate Christians or to hate Christ.
I had been exposed to the Edgar Cayce books when I was about
twelve years old. I read through all of them and moved on to many books from
all over the world that all seemed to mesh together. The result was that I was
100% convinced that reincarnation was the truth, but it is not the truth. I
read all these books and was deceived for about 12 years and the public school system
was there to reinforce that I had evolved from some amoebas on a warm pond
surface, quite by accident as well.
Moving on to my conversation to the faith: I hated
Christians enough to slam the door in their faces so the Lord knew I would have
to be home alone when this happened. I will skip the details even though they are good and say that one moment I was in
Adam and the next I was in Christ. I knelt down, repeated the “Sinner’s Prayer”
but I did more than that. I converted 5000% from new age thinking to a Bible
reading machine. I could understand the Bible now. When I read it I saw and
felt TRUTH. Because I had been deceived by man’s books I did not read them for
the first 7 years I was a Christian.
That is the backdrop to the story. I went to a church and
was water baptized (the same week) and they placed newly regenerated me into a “small
group” also known as a home fellowship group or cell group, praying meeting,
living room group. You get the idea.
The first week I went about 30 people were crammed into a
living room and the meeting started. They used words that I had never heard
before like “lifting you up in prayer,” stuff like that. The young woman (about
23 years old) next to me raised her hand for a prayer request. I’m astonished. I
had only begun my Bible reading and it took a year to read the whole thing the
first time so I’m there without much head knowledge at all. So I stared at her
and listened to this “prayer request.”
Her face had an innocent quality to it. I can still see her
in my mind and it’s been nearly 33 years ago. She looked sweet. She looked
angelic. She was not pretty. She had kind of a moon face but she looked up
toward the ceiling and told us what she wanted prayer for. I’m changing her
name to Jenny because I have no way to contact her for permission to write
about her, this account is one hundred percent true except for that. Her
request was that she had been attending classes for about one year to be a
Medical Assistant, also referred to as a “MA” and I had never heard of that
before. It’s lower than being a RN or a LPN but that doesn’t matter. She had
been working hard at this program and was about to finish and she wanted a job.
That was the prayer request, a job as a MA. That means she will need to work in
the medical field and she lived in an area called the east side of the Lake. If
you look on a map and you should to fully appreciate this story you will see that
Seattle is a large city and east of it is a large lake named Lake Washington.
The east side of the lake grew and contains Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond and
these are large cities as well. Bellevue, for example, has a lot of high-rise
buildings (sky scrapers). Bellevue Washington has a huge hospital and so many doctors’
offices I can’t even describe it but trust me there are a lot. The same can be
said for Kirkland and Redmond; they have a lot of clinics.
While I’m on the topic of geography Seattle has a place
called “First Hill” also known as “Pill Hill” because there are at least 4
gigantic hospitals there and because of that there are clinics surrounding them
and again too many to count.
As to my prayer, well, I was new to that. So I went home determined
to pray, to figure it out. I had read this verse: Jesus said, “’There was in a
certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. 3 Now
there was a widow in that city; and she came to him, saying, ‘Get justice for
me from my adversary.’ 4 And he would not for a while; but
afterward he said within himself, ‘Though I do not fear God nor regard man, 5 yet
because this widow troubles me I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming
she weary me.’ 6 Then the Lord said, ‘Hear what the unjust
judge said. 7 And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry
out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? 8 I
tell you that He will avenge them speedily.’” From Luke 18
So I decided to go with the persistence of that widow from
the parable. I closed my eyes and I could see Jenny’s face, her angelic face,
moon shaped face and I prayed, “Please God, I know you love Jenny, I can tell
she is sweet and you must love her so much. Please, please, please let her get
a job being a MA.” And I did not stop, I said that prayer a lot.
Meanwhile I caught a cold or something and I have to go to
the doctor myself. I worked right in the heart of downtown Seattle and usually
one would go up to Pill Hill to one of those clinics but I didn’t. There was an
old fashioned building (adjoining the former Frederick and Nelson building for
you in Seattle) and it had about 9 to 11 floors of doctors and dentists. I
walked in and looked at the directory, found my floor and rode the very old elevator
to the 6th floor or 7th, I don’t know at this point. I
waited in the lobby like everyone does and a lady called my name. I looked at
her badge and instead of being a nurse she was a MA. My first Medical Assistant
I had ever seen. So while she took my blood pressure and temperature and all
that I asked her a lot of questions.
“Do you like your job?” “How is this doctor to work for?”
And this woman nodded emphatically about how great the job was and how nice the
doctor was.
Okay, now I’m still praying for Jenny and I’m still seeing
her beautiful moon face as I pray but I can also pray more specifically, right?
I asked God this, “Oh please, please, please give Jenny a job just like that
lady’s job. A job she’ll like with a doctor she’ll like….please, please,
please. I know you love Jenny. Please let her get a job just like that lady’s.”
I returned to home fellowship group for the 2nd
time and Jenny may or may not have repeated her request. I think she did or I
think someone checked with her about that. Remember, there are 30 other people
there and I’m not the only one praying for her to get this job.
So I don’t give up. Me and the persistent widow are going to
be conjoined twins. I am going to emulate her so every day and every night my prayer
continues. “Just like that lady’s job. That lady liked her job so much. Please
give Jenny a job just like that.”
Third home fellowship I ever attending comes up and I go.
Guess what? I learned a new phrase. Jenny lifted her hand and said, “I have a praise.”
I’m looking at her eagerly because I’m feeling pretty invested in this due to
three weeks of prayer and I want to know what a praise is too. Jenny then
announces that she got a job.
The whole room bursts into happiness.
I’m right next to her and I ask where the job is. It would
have been a great answer to prayer had it been in Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland because
that is where she lived and I expected her to name one of the zillion clinics
in those cities. She almost brushed me off as she said, “Oh you wouldn’t know
where it is.”
I insisted on knowing so I asked again. “It’s in Seattle.”
She probably thinks I too live on the east side of the Lake, right. I insist
further and ask again. “Well, it’s in a funny building downtown that you haven’t
heard of.”
I excitedly told her that I knew downtown, that I worked
there myself. So she answers, “My new job is in the Medical Dental Building.”
That is the old building that I had just been too and had
been praying for, or I should say I had been using the Medical Dental Building
as a tool during prayer.
Then I ask “Which doctor?” Probably thinking I’m quite the
pest she said that doctor’s name. The same, exact doctor that I had gone in to
see. That doctor. Not a different doctor in the same building; that would have
been unbelievable enough.
No. God wanted me to see that she could get a job, as a MA
for that doctor at the only medical clinic in downtown Seattle which was far
from likely. That is why I had to point out the geography of not getting a job
where there were thousands of possibilities.
People have asked me, “what about the other lady, the one
who worked there?”
I don’t know, I wasn’t praying for her.
Clevsea, copyright January, 2015
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