Bold Profession

My watch read 6:41 pm as I briskly walked across the first of three crowded sky-bridges on my trek to work. The parking garage seems an eternity away from my unit at the hospital, and on this night, a craving for caffeine forced me to stop at the Starbucks. Now I was racing the next four minutes.

“Thank you for your prayers.” A voice speaking to another emerged from the corner of a hallway. My pace was abruptly weighted. “I felt them today. I have cried myself dry, but I am feeling overwhelming peace from the Lord. He hears our prayers.”

She spoke with confident assurance, rash honesty, and unforgiving boldness.

She spoke with faith.

The Southern accent was weak and saddened, the tone detailed exhaustion, and yet a resilient hope resonated from her words. She stands among the marginalized, who quietly and boldly profess their faith. A woman, weak from blood loss, struggles to reach among the crowd, yet she fights to extend her arm just for the slightest touch of His garment. A make-shift cot is dangerously lowered from a roof in desperate attempts for Him to lay eyes upon a crippled man. A distraught father leaves the bedside of his dying daughter; He travels long distances just to speak to Him face-to-face. A weeping woman stares down the impossible; all eyes are set on the tomb.

They won’t accept. Their faith propels them forward: to act, to proclaim, to glorify. They seek, and they will find, as He promises. The outcome is not significant, it is faith in His love that descends and covers the heart and its fear and worry. It is the acceptance of His goodness, His unfailing love, and the everlasting hope in His resurrection. I often forget the wonder found in the blessed gift of belief. So much mystery and beauty is beyond the surface of man’s capability to understand, yet we live in assurance of the truth He has, is, and will be revealing to creation.

The voice trailed off as I reluctantly increased my distance. My intentions were not to eavesdrop, not even to appease curiosity. I slowed to accept an invitation to hear unashamed faith proclaimed by a stranger.

And I was blessed in the moment.

I said a prayer for the women: a silent plea for perseverance and unwavering stance in faith for her, and for me; that our Lord God would continue to bless us with increasing faith in the midst of the hardest moments in life; that He alone would be glorified by the little ways we demonstrate our faith in Him.

“He hears our prayers.” I heard the woman echo in my thoughts. It is so. I boldly confess:

Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. (Rom 8:34)