“Sure, but um…”
“I gotta go to the prayer room. See you after the service.” I knew she wanted to ask what I’d like to talk about, and I hated to keep her hanging, but it would have to wait.
There was a long line of people waiting to see me after the service for various reasons. I was also in charge of hospital visitation and the AIDS ministry so I was always flooded with people requesting that I (or someone from my trained volunteer team) would visit their relatives in need. Finally, Lois was escorted back behind the stage where we pastors briefly spoke with people. (If conversations needed to be longer, we’d make appointments for them to see us across the street another day at the 38th-floor church offices.)
“Hi, Lois. Let’s go over to that bench and sit for a minute.” She seemed quite nervous, and there were still at least ten people waiting to see me so I decided to get right to the point.
“You know the sister who often prays right next to me at the altar?”
“Yes, Lynn. She’s a good friend of mine.”
“Was she saved in a Pentecostal church?”
“Yes, in a Pentecostal church on the Lower East Side.”
“Is she in her mid-twenties?”
“Yes, she’s twenty-four, almost twenty-five. Hey, wait a minute. How do you know this, and why are you asking me about her?”
“Well, I had a dream about her, and we…”
“Oh my!” she nearly screamed. “She’s going to be your wife!”
“Shhhh!” I said. “If this is of God, it will work itself out.”
“Oh, this is awesome,” Lois said as she took out a fan and started fanning herself as if she didn’t hear a word I just said.
“Lois, if this is of God, it will work out. But I need you to promise me that you won’t say a word to anyone. OK?”
“OK! OK!” she eagerly said as though I had just asked if she’d like to be a part of the wedding party. I could see her mind was wandering off in a million directions.
“Not a word to anyone. Right?”
“Right,” and she left, still fanning herself as she hurried out. Little did I know that Lynn was Lois’s best friend, and Lynn was waiting for her to come out from behind the stage. They waited until they were out of the church to begin speaking.
“So, what did Pastor Charles have to tell you? Did he give you a prophetic word?”
“Lynn, you know I tell you everything, but I can’t tell you this. I promised Pastor Charles I wouldn’t say anything to you…I mean, that I wouldn’t say anything.”
“What! Lois, please tell me yes or no. Does this have to do with you or me?”
No response.
“Does this have to do with my going back to school?”
“You could say that!”
“Does this have to do with my going into ministry?”
“You certainly could say that!”
“Lois, what in the world is this about?”
“Lynn, all I can tell you is you’d better pray like you’ve never prayed in your life!”
“What?” Lynn exclaimed as she stopped in her tracks.
“Lynn, Pastor Charles saw you in a dream. And then the Lord told him all about you. You’re going to be his wife!”
“What! Be his wife!” Lynn gasped. “What if he’s missing it?”
Lois looked around to see if anyone was snooping and then said, “Missing it? If the pastor of prayer of Times Square Church is missing it, I will never come back here again. I’ll start Lois Tabernacle in my living room and you can join me. OK?” Lynn headed to her bus, dazed and shocked.
Neither Lois nor Lynn attended the next Thursday or Friday evening service, or the Sunday morning service. Maybe they’d never come back! Sunday evening, about an hour after the service was over, the head usher said to me, “Pastor Charles, there are two more people in line to speak with you…no, make that three,” as Lois stepped into the line.
She had such a horrible look on her face that I thought of all kinds of negative scenarios about the need for a hospital visit to one of her family members.
“Pastor Charles,” she mumbled with her head down, not giving me any eye contact whatsoever. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry about what?” I said with a little anger and a lot of anxiety.
“Well, Lynn is my best friend, more like a daughter to me.”
“You didn’t tell her, did you?”
She nodded her head up and down.
“Oh no,” I said. I got up and walked away as Pastor Dave’s words rang in my ears: “If you don’t hear clearly from the Lord whom to marry, this could destroy the calling on your life.”
I went up to my room, but I couldn’t sleep. “Lord, I’m really in turmoil. I didn’t think Lois would tell anyone, much less Lynn. She gave me her word. I don’t know what to do. I’m really good at guessing people’s ages. Maybe I just happened to guess that she was saved in a Pentecostal church.”
At about five in the morning, sleep still hadn’t come to me. I almost dozed off about ten times, but each time I thought about Pastor Dave’s warning and how shocked Lynn must be, and how good I am at guessing people’s ages, and how much responsibility I had as an associate pastor to set a good example. I couldn’t even seem to pray through, I guess because my prayers were so mixed with such apprehension. I recalled one of Pastor Dave’s sermons and decided it was time to put his words into practice. I would forget about all my problems for a while and simply worship the Lord. I put on a worship tape and began to sing along with it. After a while, the cassette clicked off, and I kept singing. The presence of God came upon me really strong.
“Charles,” I heard the Lord say within my heart, “Lynn is going to be your wife. I want you to know this and I want you to be certain about it so I’m going to tell you something about her that you could never guess, so you will know this is of Me. Her parents were separated when she was very young, and yet they are still in court over it.”
I could hardly wait until the Tuesday night service. But no Lois, and no Lynn. Neither were they at the Thursday or Friday services. Finally, I saw them walking into the Sunday morning service together, right as the worship began. I then noticed they were lingering together in the main lobby afterward so I took a deep breath and made my way over to them. “Wow, Lynn is really pretty,” I thought to myself as I approached them.
“Hi, Lois and Lynn. Would you two like to go with me to Applejack Diner and get some lunch?”
They looked at each other and then at me, and Lois said, “OK.” Lynn didn’t say a single word. I guess she didn’t know what to say. Lois didn’t know how to stop talking. I guess it was nervous talk. She talked as we waited for a table, as we waited for our food, as we finished our meal. Finally, she said, “I need to use the restroom. Be right back.”
Finally, Lynn and I were alone. I just had to ask her. “So, tell me about your parents.”
“Well, it’s surely a strange thing. My parents separated when I was two, and yet they’re still in court over alimony and…whatever.” She kept talking, but I couldn’t hear her. It took all my energy to refrain myself from dropping my dessert spoon and saying, “You’re going to be my wife!” From that moment on, and to this day, there’s never been an inkling of a doubt that the Lord supernaturally brought us together. All the travailing in prayer about this was surely worth it!
As we exited the diner, Lois suddenly decided to walk home alone in order to give us some time together. I said to Lynn, “You know, dreams and visions and things like that are fine, but if it’s OK with you, I’d like to put all that stuff behind us and just be friends. OK?”
She breathed out a huge sigh of relief and said, “OK! I’ll walk you back to the church and then I’ll take the bus home to my mom’s in Washington Heights.” On the way back, I found out that she was a schoolteacher and had off the entire month ahead.
“Lynn, would you like to come down to the church sometime and pray with me?”
“OK. I can come down t
he day after tomorrow.”
From that day on, we spent the next fifty consecutive days together, primarily eating at one of the many Theater District restaurants after spending time praying together. There was an open room directly under the stage where altar counseling took place. Workers often walked through the area during the day, so it was semi-private but not too private as to be indiscreet. As we prayed there daily together (she too is an intercessor), God knit our hearts together and we fell in love with each other. And then I told her all about the dream and the words the Lord told me about her.
One day, Pastor Dave said to me with a big fatherly smile, “Charles, the church cleaning staff tells me that you’re always praying with a certain girl under the stage in the counseling area.”
“Yes. Her name is Lynn.”
“I’d like to meet her tonight, after the evening service.”
“Sure.”
At the end of the Sunday evening service, one of the ushers escorted Lynn to the back and she stood beside me as we waited for Pastor Dave to finish greeting folks from another country. His wife, Gwen, was with him backstage. Finally, the visitors said goodbye, and Pastor Dave and his wife walked over to us.
“Pastor Dave and Gwen, this is Lynn.”
“Charles,” Pastor Dave said as he stared at Lynn, “I’ve always been very frank and open with you, and I just want to say…this is God! This is God!” Pastor Dave looked deeply into Lynn’s eyes and said, “I see Jesus in you. Thank You, Lord, for having Your way in her life.”
Sister Gwen then hugged Lynn and said, “Welcome to the inner circle, honey. I’m sure we’re going to love you as much as we love Charles.” We’ll never forget that truly precious moment.
The following Tuesday, I was sitting in Pastor Dave’s office sharing with Barbara, his secretary, everything I knew about Lynn. We were waiting for Pastor Dave to finish up a meeting with his sonin-law, Roger, the church treasurer. When he sat down next to me, he got right to the point. “Charles, I don’t believe in long marriage engagements. When you know it’s God, why wait? Waiting too long just puts you in hard situations. Would you and Lynn like to get married soon?”
“Well, I didn’t want to get engaged until you met her. So, we just got engaged, and it’s the middle of October. We did talk about how nice it would be to have a Christmas wedding. Manhattan is such an awesome place during the holidays.”
“Perfect. Let’s have a Christmas wedding!”
A few weeks before the wedding, Pastor Dave asked Lynn and me to walk with him to his apartment at the Worldwide Plaza after a Sunday evening service.
“So, how did your marriage counseling session go with Pastor Bob?” he asked us as we walked together.
“It was great. He and I exchanged amazing stories about how the Lord brought our wives to us,” I replied.
“Yeah. I’m not so good with counseling. Not like you, Charles. I get impatient hearing people’s long stories. I like to get to the point. For instance, here’s my advice to you both.” He stopped and faced us as though we were his little congregation, and then came the sermonette. He said, “Have a lot of mercy on each other, especially in the first year. When you have disputes, just say, ‘I’ll have mercy on you if you’ll have mercy on me!’” Lynn and I laughed because it sounded so silly and so simplistic. He then continued, “Especially after the first year, you two are going to have such a wonderful life together. It’s gonna be like Heaven on earth.” His little bit of advice did go a long way toward making our first year smooth, and his prophetic word continues to come to pass. Thank God!
We continued walking to the Worldwide Plaza with him. When he got into the elevator, instead of saying, “See you later,” he said, “Step in, and come with me.” He pushed B instead of 34, and we headed down to the basement. As we walked over to his wife’s almost brand-new Honda Accord, he pulled the keys out of his pocket and said, “My wife doesn’t like driving in the city. We’d like to give this car to you and Lynn as an early wedding gift. Besides, with all the hospitals you visit each week, you need a dependable car. As a matter of fact, Charles, your plate is so full. If Lynn would be willing to quit her teaching job and be your full-time secretary, we’ll double your salary.”
We were so overwhelmed with his generosity, all we knew to do was to cry and nod our heads in thanks and agreement.
“It’s yours. You can give Lynn a ride home if you’d like.”
As we drove out of the underground lot, Lynn said, “What a blessing it must be to be so well-off financially that you can give so generously. Did you see how much joy it gave Pastor Dave to give us this nice car? I’d like to be able to bless people like that one day.” I drove her home to her mom’s in Washington Heights and then drove back to the Worldwide Plaza parking lot.
A few weeks before our wedding, I realized that even with the money Lynn had saved up while working for the Board of Education and living at home with her mom, it would be hard to get enough furniture for our new apartment. A friend in church named Vinny was looking for someone to help him with a big painting job in New Jersey.
“Lynn, I think I’m gonna help Vinny paint that house on Monday and Tuesday. He’ll give me two hundred dollars a day, and that’s really good money. We need some extra money.”
“Have you prayed about it?” she asked on the other end of the line, as I was talking to her from one of the church’s old-fashioned phone booths behind the stage.
“No, but he starts tomorrow morning, and he needs the answer right now.”
“I don’t feel peace about it, Charles. I don’t think you should do it. You’re working hard enough, and we should trust God to bring in the extra money we need.”
“I don’t know,” I said reluctantly.
I quickly ended the conversation as Vinny approached me, saying, “I gotta go, Charles. I start early tomorrow morning. Is it a yes or a no?”
“Yes, I’ll help you. What’s the train stop in Jersey where you’ll pick me up?”
The next day, although I had stayed up late due to emergency counseling, I woke up at 4:00 A.M. I needed to leave by 5:00 in order to catch the 5:20 train so Vinny could pick me up at 7:05 somewhere in New Jersey. When I saw him drive into the train station parking lot a half hour late, I could tell something was wrong.
“Vinny, what’s the matter?”
“Joe’s wife called me this morning. She doesn’t want the house painted.”
“She can just back out of the agreement like that?”
“Joe died of a heart attack yesterday, Charles.”
On the long train ride back to the city, I thought about how when Lynn and I get married, maybe I should listen to her, especially when she doesn’t have peace about things!
At the Friday night service, right before our Saturday wedding, Pastor Dave got up and invited the entire church to the wedding ceremony. Maybe no one told him that the reception would be in the lower rotunda, which should only hold a hundred and not the hundreds who showed up. That would be the last wedding reception in the lower rotunda! Every Christmas a wealthy couple in the congregation purchased tons of red poinsettias, filling the stage with color and cheer. They decided to get them a couple days early, so they were in place for our December 22nd wedding.
Pastor Bob Phillips, also known as Marrying Bob, officiated the service. As he and I were waiting backstage, I looked out beyond the flowers and noticed that the lower level was packed with friends and family members. I saw my mom and Lynn’s mom and my dear friend, Charles Thompson, who led me to the Lord so many years ago when I was a very lost teenager. I was trying real hard not to get too nervous so I struck up a conversation with Pastor Bob. “How many weddings have you done, Pastor Bob?”
“I don’t know. I stopped counting after a few hundred.”
“No way!” I exclaimed.
He humbly nodded his head. What a relief! At least he wouldn’t be nervous. He could do this in his sleep. As he noticed the swelling crowd, he said something I didn’t
quite hear clearly. I thought he said to me, “This sure took a lot of sweat.” Was he actually referring to how the rest of the pastoral staff must have prayed extremely hard for God to bless me with such a lovely bride as Lynn? But still, it sounded weird to me, so I asked, “Pastor Bob, what did you just say?”
“I said, this is surely the biggest one yet,” referring to the number of people present. As Lynn walked down the long aisle, I was amazed at how good the Lord had been to me! It never even dawned on me that most, if not all, of the people attending would be giving us wedding gifts. After the wedding ceremony and reception were over, John (the new caretaker of the building) said to me, “And what do we do with all the wedding gifts, Pastor Charles?”
“Uh, can you put them in your office until I get back?”
“That’s where they are right now, but they can’t stay there until you get back from your honeymoon!” The look on my face said, “And why not?”
“Come with me,” John demanded as he darted to his office, dangling his keys as he went. By the time we arrived, he had selected the right key, and when he opened the door, wow! The office was filled almost to the ceiling with large stuffed black garbage bags!
“All these bags…are filled with wedding gifts?”
“Yep,” John said, “and they can’t stay here.”
Right then, my friend Vinny popped his head in and said, “Pastor Charles, I’ll take them over to your new apartment in my van.”
“Thanks so much, Vinny. The super has an extra key.”
And then John said, “Pastor Charles, take the bag that’s on my desk if you can get to it. Yeah, that one.” I lifted it up and noticed it wasn’t too heavy and didn’t seem more than halfway filled, unlike the rest of them.
“Those are the cards,” John explained. “Take that one with you.” It wasn’t until halfway through our honeymoon that I remembered that bag in the trunk of our Honda Accord. “Hey, Lynn, you want to look at the cards we got?” Oh my! It seemed like every single card had a twenty-, a fifty-, or a hundred-dollar bill in it. Since Pastor Dave invited the entire church the night before the wedding, many of the guests decided to give us cash. We counted the money, and it totaled more than six thousand dollars!
Walking in the Footsteps of David Wilkerson Page 11