2016-06-30
I was in a VA hospital in Portland, back in 1977 or '78. As a friend and I were walking in front of the hospital--it was about 8:15 p.m.--this girl came up to us. She was blond, wearing overalls. She had been crying. She said, "My brother is dying. He's not going to be here too long!" She asked us to pray for him, to go in and see him, because she couldn't. She also told us that he was an atheist; he didn't believe in Christ, he didn't believe in salvation, he didn't believe in eternal life or anything else.

She gave us the room number, and we went in. The nurse had just gotten done taking blood samples. He had leukemia and throat cancer. He was in bad shape. The doctor came in and told us that the guy'd be dead in the morning.

When a pastor came in moments later, he asked him, "Would you like to have salvation? Do you know the condition you're in?" And he nodded his head yes. He could hardly talk. So we all kinda prayed around his bed.

The next morning, my friend and I went back. I went into his room expecting to find him dead. We saw his bed was cleaned out and the mattress was rolled up and everything. We asked the staff if he was still alive, and they said "Yes," but he had to be transferred outta there.

About three months later I met the same guy in a hallway and, believe it or not, he was passing out flyers for the chaplain's office. He ran right up to me, recognized me right of the bat, and I recognized him. The scar on his throat was just practically gone. He said, "I want to know how you guys got up to my room when you came in to pray for me, because no one in the chaplain's service here remembers!" And I said, "Well, this girl outside came out of nowhere, and she asked us to." He said, "I want to know more about this girl. Who was she?" And I said, "Well, it was just this girl. She wanted to make sure that you were going to make it through the night. She was really afraid that, ya know, you were gonna be lost." And he said, "What did she say her name was?" And I said, "I remember her saying that she was your sister."


His face just went cold white; you had to have been there. He just dropped everything he had in his hands. And then he looked at me and said, "My sister's dead! She was killed in a car wreck three years ago!" And he pulled out his wallet to show me a picture . . . and it was the same girl! It was the very same girl! There was no question. I don't know if she was as pretty-lookin' in that picture, but it was the same girl--she was even wearing the same clothes! I just totally blew my mind. I rocked back in my chair I couldn't even think. I was stunned. I was just sitting there alone, going "What in the heck is going on here?" I never experienced anything like that before, and I tell ya, it put a whole new meaning into faith and belief for me. Every time I think about it...I can't reason it away.

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