Last weekend Mandi and I had to decide if we were going to go down front and ask for prayers from the congregation at Delaware Christian Church. I thought about it a good bit before talking with Amanda on that Sunday morning. Mandi was the first to bring up the topic during our short commute to DCC. She mentioned that it would be rather selfish and prideful for us not to share this cosmic change occurring within our lives. I agreed.
Mandi prepared a short message and had me read it before we made the trip to the front row. Al Perry met us with a smile and open arms as I shared with him the abbreviated news about Claire. He then asked the congregation to come and lay hands on us and pray for us and our baby girl. It is rather comforting to hear the words of others praying for you. To be honest, it is also rather uncomfortable to publicly make it known that you need something from someone else. In our culture of competition and hierarchy, I feel that Christians have a rather difficult time proclaiming a need for someone / something outside of themselves. Needless to say, Mandi and I appreciated the support we felt from our fellow brothers and sisters from Delaware Christian Church.
After the prayer, a young girl decided to give her life to Christ in baptism. Now try to put yourself into my shoes as I dream about someday assisting Claire in her walk. To listen to her proclaim that Jesus is Lord of Her Life. To hopefully step into the cold water with her and whisper in her ear that I am proud of her and that I love her. To talk her through the procedure of baptism and share in the milestone of her Christian walk and personal relationship with Christ. I hope this dream becomes a reality.
After the service, we were greeted with a number of individuals...most of whom we knew. One older lady did approach us after the service. She had gray hair and was wearing an unassuming flanel dress. There was no distinguishing feature of which I can remember. She shared one sentence with us that was memorable. Her words, "God's story will become famous through your little girl." Why would anyone echo these words to a hurting family? On the surface, it appears rather weird.
I knew right away why she said this and I looked to Amanda to see if she heard the message as clear as I did. I knew if she knew the deeper meaning of this rather misplaced statement, she would not be able to hold back her tears.
If you remember back to my previous post I talked about the difficult drive down to meet Mandi after we had found out about Claire's heart. On that drive down towards Columbus, one of the thousands of thoughts that came to mind is that this little girl better be a Fighter. That lead me to question, what does the name Claire mean? Could it mean fighter, passionate, savior? Now I know that most of you will get on me for this, including Mandi, but I looked up the meaning of Claire on my phone while driving down 23. Come to find out... Claire means Famous.
Back to that older ladies words..."God's story will become FAMOUS through your little girl." The deeper meaning of her words was unveiled. The message was heard loud and clear. I decided to share with Mandi that the unassuming lady had a message with a deeper meaning. Mandi's facial expressions changed as the words left my mouth. The tears did flow as I originally thought they would with the newfound information. The meaning of the words took on a completely different meaning. So much more personal. So much more real. As if it is a proclamation of the Truth. A prophesy? Who knows.
In a conversation later with my best friend Nate, I shared that part of me would like to talk with this unassuming lady again and part of me does not. I asked him... do you think this was an angel of God? Could it be this gray-haired lady was at DCC on that Sunday morning to attend to our aching hearts. We had no way to answer that question but I can tell you that both of us agreed that we hope we do not see that lady again... hold that thought... Angel again.
~Josh
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