Episode Transcript
Acts 1:8 (NIV)
"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
CONSIDER THIS
Today, we have a Holy Spirit Story. It comes to us from Janet Wehrle. You will learn more about Janet in the story below. She is married to David, who is the pastor of a Global Methodist Church in South Carolina. Prepare to be encouraged, blessed, and challenged. Let's get right to it. Below, you will read the story in her words, and if you listen, you will hear it in her own voice.
I am a speech therapist at an outpatient neurological rehabilitation clinic where I try to help individuals with swallowing, speech/language, or cognitive deficits from strokes, brain injuries, or progressive diseases like dementia. More than a job, this is my vocation, and I love it. But it is often difficult and draining to spend all day with people who are struggling with impairments. On the other hand, I have an amazing opportunity to develop relationships with people who have felt needs, as I spend one-on-one time with them over weeks and often months.
One of these individuals—I will call him Joseph—started coming to see me almost two years ago after he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease in only his early sixties. He could no longer work and moved in with his elderly mother, who started driving him to appointments at my clinic twice a week. In between doing memory exercises and other therapy activities, we would talk. I knew that he was interested in various types of meditation and spiritual or religious topics. One day, he came in with two paper tags from the Yogi tea he liked to drink, a brand that embraces Ayurvedic wisdom. The tags had quotes that he enjoyed reading. I will not forget that day because it was the start of a journey. He presented me with the two tags and told me that when he read the quotes, he thought, That embodies Janet! They said: “Lift up others with your peaceful presence” and “Serve all in truth, in compassion, and in grace.”
Wow. I knew Joseph was seeing Jesus, not me. I’m sure the Holy Spirit was nudging me to say something about Jesus, but I didn’t have courage in situations like that to follow that “nudge.” Over the next year or so, as Joseph and I continued to meet, we got to know more about each other’s lives. He started to ask frequently about my family and to make more comments about how I was joyful or patient. It was a tricky situation because I was in the role of a healthcare professional, and he was my patient. I didn’t want to overstep my bounds by having spiritual conversations. But as he was the one initiating the conversations, I began to gradually develop more courage to listen to the Holy Spirit, until one day, I said that all the qualities he saw in me were because of Jesus in my life.
Fast-forward until a couple of months ago. At the end of a session, Joseph told me that he was becoming more and more interested in spirituality and said, “I guess you could say I am seeking.” He asked if he could come to church with me sometime to see what it’s all about. My heart leaped! Absolutely, he could come. The difficulty was that the church my husband pastors currently is an hour from Joseph’s home. So I ended up inviting him to our life group, a small group of amazing, Spirit-filled people from various churches. He came to two meetings, and I saw the church, the body of Christ, in action as they welcomed him. Because of his cognitive difficulties, reading lines of text for song lyrics or the Bible is nearly impossible. But he joined in the meetings by listening and just “soaking it all in,” as he told me. He loved the music and the discussion and was amazed by the acceptance and love of the members of the group. By God’s serendipity, the current topic of the life group is simply the gospel (based on Scot McKnight’s book The King Jesus Gospel), and each week a different group member is sharing their testimony of coming to follow Jesus!
After the second meeting, Joseph came in for his regular appointment with me. As we still needed to do cognitive therapy, I decided to make a meaningful activity of using memory strategies to learn the names of the people in the life group. Then God gave me the idea to use Seedbed’s short video “An Invitation to the Awakened Life” (a gospel presentation) as a memory exercise, with the intention that I would have him watch it and then tell me what he remembered from the information.
Well, God had other plans. As he watched the video, I saw tears beginning. At the end, he said it was just so powerful that it was making him cry. I didn’t get to ask him about the information in the video because he just said, “You got me.” When I asked what that meant, he responded, “You got me. I want to follow.” I then played the prayer at the end of the video and asked him to pray with it.
I have been a Christian for at least thirty-five years. I honestly don’t think I have ever sat with someone as they decided to follow Jesus. I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in such a tangible way in that room.
Over the next few days, I started crying every time I thought about that moment. I wanted to understand why. As I contemplated, I started to realize that part of it is because another person, a friend, is counted among those who follow Jesus. But I think my tears come from somewhere else. I am in awe that the Holy Spirit actually does fill people—even me. That others actually see the Holy Spirit in and through me. It is really humbling. I see how Jesus has been growing and maturing me in the understanding that I don’t have to witness. I AM a witness. (Thank you, Seedbed, from Wake-Up Call, and New Room, for your ministry that has been so instrumental in this growth.) For so long, I was afraid of evangelism because I thought I needed the right method or the right thing to say. But I have been learning to just be . . . me! Because me is Jesus in me.
God has shown me other things through this experience as well. For example, I am realizing how people can accept the invitation (as in “An Invitation to the Awakened Life”) to follow Jesus without being able to state the tenets of the gospel. I also see how God can use me in the marketplace. I feel like my skills as a speech therapist put me in a unique position to be a witness for Joseph as someone who understands his cognitive challenges. This isn't only a story about someone meeting Jesus. It's a story about Jesus abiding in me as I try to abide in him. He is giving me an ever-deepening love for people, sadness about the brokenness of the world, and a desire for him and for awakening.
THE PRAYER
Father, thank you for the way you witness to yourself when we simply share your story with others. Thank you for inviting us into the journey of ever-deepening awakening to you. Thank you for Janet and the way she takes risks of faith in her everyday job. Thank you for Joseph, this beautiful man whom she invited right in the midst of his impairment. Nothing is too hard for you, Jesus. Awaken our awareness, faith, and love to be on the ready to take steps with others on the journey of awakening. Would you multiply this story by a million? Praying in Jesus's name, amen.
