Even as she was saying this, Jesus was leaning in close, distracting Gladys. As soon as she finished her introduction, Jesus filled in more information. “It’s trouble with his boss and fear that he’s gonna lose his job.”
Though she stumbled a bit, Gladys was able to add this last detail before Bonnie could recover from her initial surprise. Three other women, who knew both Bonnie and Gladys, had slowed to listen to what Gladys was saying. The look on Bonnie’s face was the beacon that drew them in.
“He is having trouble with his boss,” Bonnie said, with a sort of hushed exclamation and wide eyes. Bonnie was a natural redhead, before the gray set in. She had kept her hair color halfway between the red of her youth and the light gray that the years had introduced. Her shoulder-length hair waved in emphasis of her surprise.
“Well, I think we should pray for you and for him right here,” Gladys said, conscious that this was a stretch of protocol. The ladies were more accustomed to just adding any concerns to their prayer lists, to be addressed later, in private.
Bonnie was entirely agreeable, in spite of the lack of precedent. Her fear for Alex, her twenty-six-year-old, and the stunning detail of Gladys’s “leading,” sealed the deal.
“Ask her if you and the other ladies can lay hands on her shoulders,” Jesus said.
Gladys thought this was a bit much, but she felt obligated to Jesus for getting her this far, and she was genuinely concerned about Alex now. She didn’t want to leave any of the cupboards unopened in this search for provision.
“Okay if we lay hands on you?” Gladys said. “Because I feel like there’s a burden on your shoulders over this, that should be taken away.” This last bit surprised even Gladys. Used to running her mouth, she wasn’t used to it running with such useful insights.
“Yes, of course,” Bonnie said, tears already filling her eyes, and her hair quivering against her navy blue jacket, like a fine-tuned meter of her feelings.
While the other women situated themselves, and resituated themselves around Bonnie, placing and shifting and finally settling their hands on her shoulders, Gladys checked with Jesus. Again, he answered in her mind to keep her from speaking aloud to him.
“That extra bit about her shoulders was another insight from my spirit. Now just pray as I show you,” he said.
With confidence and force that none of these women had ever seen or heard from Gladys, she led a prayer for strength, mixed with declarations of Bonnie’s freedom, and predictions about God’s provision for Alex. When she finished, assuming the other women would want to take a turn, Gladys found only stunned silence. That is, external silence. Inside she could hear Jesus saying, “Umhm. That’s right. That’ll do it. That’s how it’s gonna be. Well done, Gladdy.”
Bonnie dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and looked up at Gladys. “It’s so amazing that you could see all that, Gladys. I just don’t know what to say, except thank you.”
Over the years, Gladys had done a fair number of favors for folks in the church, and had received thanks for her efforts. Now, for the first time, she didn’t feel right about accepting the thanks. If she baked a cake, or brought over dinner for an ailing person, she thought nothing of just saying, “you’re quite welcome.” But, when it came to delivering a message from Jesus, she felt like she should refuse any credit for what she did.
“Oh, well, it wasn’t me, really. It was Jesus.”
Bonnie nodded, mopped up the last of her tears, and bypassed analyzing Gladys’s deflection. To Bonnie, it seemed an appropriate enough thing to say, given that she didn’t entirely understand what had just happened.
As the impromptu prayer circle dispersed, Ida Holdrege stayed close to Gladys, waiting for the others to get out of listening range. When she felt safe, she quickened her pace and pulled in next to Gladys. Ida was a very large woman, nearly six feet tall and very stout. When she sidled up next to Gladys, it felt like being passed by a semi on a county road, something that happened fairly often when Gladys ventured out of town.
“Gladys, can I ask you something?” Ida said.
Looking up at Ida somewhat uncomfortably, nevertheless, Gladys said, “Of course, what is it, Ida?”
“Could you pray for me and Oliver? We’re having a hard time, and I really don’t want him to leave me.” Ida’s tear ducts hit high volume just as she finished her request.
Oliver was her husband of nearly forty years. They had married in their early twenties, like Harry and Gladys.
As she wondered how to respond, Gladys received an impression that Oliver had taken a mistress.
Gladys didn’t watch the kind of TV or movies that either glamorized or exposed this kind of lifestyle, and she hardly read any books not assigned for Bible study. All of which made her instant sense of Oliver’s infidelity feel quite shocking. Jesus answered the question she was going to articulate eventually.
“That’s from my spirit,” he said, referring to the revelation that was disturbing Gladys. “And let me suggest that you not say it right out to Ida. it would be too much for her to hear it right now. But you need to know so you can pray wisely.”
The constraint of not being able to address Jesus aloud jabbed Gladys in that moment. She had something to say, and to say with quite a lot of feeling.
“Why? Why, do I need to know this? How? How am I supposed to pray for that?” she said internally, where Jesus was fully capable of hearing both her thoughts and feelings.
“Just follow my lead,” Jesus said. “Say what I tell you.”
As far as Gladys was concerned, that was the only way she was going to go ahead with this.
“Okay,” Gladys said to Ida, after that painful pause. “Let’s stop here and pray.” They were standing next to the wrought iron railing for a stairway down to the children’s Sunday school classrooms, shaded by two artificial palm trees, that did double duty as foyer decoration and props for Mediterranean-based dramas.
Gladys dutifully repeated after Jesus. “Father, God, thank you for the years of joy that Ida and Oliver have experienced in the past. We pray for reconciliation in their marriage, that they would find space to turn their hearts back to each other. We bless Oliver, and his times of prayer and of Bible reading, and bless your ability to speak to him there. Now, make Ida strong, to trust in you, and rely on you fully, as her provider, her father and her true husband.”
That last phrase caught in Gladys’s throat and came out as awkwardly as it landed on her spirit. “Is this how she’s supposed to deal with his cheating? To take God as her husband?” she thought.
Ida was gasping for breath between sobs. Gladys lost track of the questions for Jesus she was accumulating, when she realized that Ida had suddenly stopped deceiving herself, and had just now begun to face the fact that Oliver was spending time with another woman. That revelation necessitated another check-in with Jesus, things moving much too fast for Gladys.
“Yes,” he said. “She just admitted it to herself. Now you can comfort her with my love, and I’m going to wrap my arms around her while you do.”
Gladys knew she wasn’t exactly on her own, but she felt free now to pray the way she naturally would, that is if she had ever previously stumbled into a situation even remotely like this. And, as she blessed Ida’s heart and welcomed Jesus’s loving arms around her, Gladys witnessed the live demonstration of his love. Though she would have thought it unlikely that her visible Jesus had arms long enough to wrap up Ida Holdrege, it seemed to Gladys that he had no trouble doing just that.
During this process, Ida would cry, and then stop and shake her head, her face looking as if she were savoring her favorite chocolates, and then she would cry some more. Gladys just kept a hand on Ida’s back and uttered a little encouragement here and there. For the most part, she was a spectator, and Jesus was doing the work. Though she wasn’t one to cry over other people’s tragedies, Gladys had to swipe away a few tears of her own, as she watched Jesus holding Ida together with his strong arms. Gladys shook her head
at the thought of what she would have done without Jesus there.
Such ruminations revealed the state of disarray that characterized Gladys’s thoughts. Of course, the entire encounter with Ida came out of Jesus being there. But Gladys hadn’t yet gotten her mind wrapped around this experience of things just popping into her head, as if from an overactive imagination, just to turn out to be accurate information that showed her what to pray and how to pray it. She knew she didn’t really have such an active imagination, so these blasts of revelation were like living inside another person’s mind, only to witness an invasion by yet another stream of thoughts.
Like most people, Gladys coped with this multilayered disorientation by not thinking about it. She had never been a deep thinker, and spent very little time speculating about things. All she knew was her present experience and a selection of edited memories. But, that was before Jesus showed up. Everything would be different from now on, that much she had figured out.
Chapter 20
LOVED
That Thursday night, before Katie arrived for the weekend, Gladys was in the kitchen putting the final touches on a Waldorf salad for lunch on Friday. She knew the walnuts would stay crunchy for a day or so. She made just enough for the two girls to “pig out” on it, as Katie would surely say.
Jesus paused from his dish-drying to look at Gladys. She felt his eyes on her and raised her head from her stirring to see what he was doing. Before this visit, with almost anyone else, Gladys would have been looking up to see what was wrong. No one, before Jesus, looked at her that intensely, unless they were preparing to criticize her or otherwise start a fight.
She smiled at the loving look in Jesus’s eyes, and returned to cleaning the streaks of whipped cream off the sides of the glass bowl with a soft rubber spatula, her hands deft with practice. “You trying to charm me or something?” she said, playfully.
Jesus laughed and dropped his dishtowel. He swung one arm around her waist and the other hand went to her chin. He gently urged her with one bent finger to meet his eyes again. Gladys let go of the bowl and dropped the spatula on the counter. She had been corralling an urge that she didn’t recognize and didn’t want to let run wild. She kicked open that gait and turned right into Jesus’s embrace. He encircled her tightly with arms that knew exactly how hard he could squeeze her without pain. And she hugged him back as hard as she could. For a full minute, that was it, just one very firm and intense hug.
When she slid back, feeling like a young woman on a date, Gladys lifted her eyes to his again. “You really do love me, don’t you?”
“Gladdy, loving you is the easiest thing in the world.”
That night, whether from those words, from weariness after the traumatic ministry at Bible study, or from the preparations for her granddaughter’s visit, Gladys slept like a patient under sedation. Except she woke in the morning without a single pain.
Jesus sat at the end of her bed, like an overgrown cat waiting to be fed. They smiled at each other, his smile bright and wakeful, hers the first stretch of the lines on her crisscrossed face.
Gladys couldn’t think of a better day than having Jesus with her and waiting for Katie to arrive. The combination was, in fact, somewhat strategic, because a visit from Katie always meant a confrontation with Patty at the drop off point. Like a contentious divorced couple, their history of child exchanges, with Katie or one of her older siblings, was dusty and scarred. Having Jesus there to comfort her, and even defend her, seemed like a more hopeful prospect than past accusation-and-answer sessions between mother and daughter.
She expected Katie to arrive mid-morning, according to Patty’s latest phone call. To Gladys’s surprise, that very business-like conversation included no mention of Gladys’s amazing secret, nor her discovery of Patty’s psychiatric care. If Gladys had stopped to wonder at the change, she might have speculated that Derek assured Patty that he had not revealed her recent history of therapy. Being a bit more spiritually inclined than Patty, Derek might have defended the possibility that Gladys was having some kind of divine experience, the accuracy of her information, that he had definitely not given her, helping to make that case.
In order to keep her nerves under control, Gladys paused a few times to dose on the eyes of Jesus, ever steady and never the least bit worried or intimidated.
At last, a minivan pulled into Gladys’s driveway. She assumed it was Patty, not remembering what car her daughter was driving these days. When she opened the door, Gladys was surprised to see Maureen Schultz walking up to the porch. Maureen was one of the women that had surrounded Bonnie at Bible study the previous day.
Jesus prepared Gladys for what was coming. “She has a big decision to make and wants you to pray with her, hoping you’ll get some ideas from me,” he said, before Maureen reached the first step. “Tell her to go ahead, but to be sure to contact her mother for some insight about how to proceed.”
Gladys was staring at Jesus when Maureen tapped on the glass of the storm door. The visitor was self-conscious about the oddity of simply showing up at Gladys’s house, so she entertained no judgement against Gladys’s stare into empty space.
Turning to look through the glass, Gladys fumbled for the handle, welcoming Maureen as she did so. “Hello, Maureen. I’m surprised to see you. I was expecting my granddaughter who’s coming for the weekend.” The last sentence was spoken through the crisp air of that April morning, instead of through the storm door.
“Oh, that’s nice. I won’t keep you then. I was just hoping you could maybe pray for me and see if you can get some leading about a decision I have to make, about my uncle moving in with us,” Maureen said, stepping inside, when Gladys gestured and stepped back to make room.
Maureen was almost sixty, with short golden hair that added to her girlish look. Slight of build and always fit, she could easily be mistaken for a much younger woman, if you saw her from a distance, too far away to see the weather-aged lines on her face and neck.
Gladys expedited the process, according to Jesus’s instructions. “Well, when I saw you coming up the walk, Jesus told me that you should go ahead with your plan to help your uncle, but be sure to talk to your mother about it first, to get her insight.”
Statue-still, for as long as she could hold her breath, Maureen stared at Gladys. “He gave you that before I even told you what the question was?”
“Yes, he knew the question and the answer,” Gladys said, with a merry smile.
Now Maureen started shaking her head in disbelief. “What’s happened to you Gladys? This insight is amazing.”
“It’s all Jesus,” Gladys said, still standing next to her dining room table, Maureen just two steps into the house. “He’s been talking to me and telling me what to say to complete strangers. And he’s the one that healed my hips and knees. No more cane.”
“That’s right,” Maureen said. “I was meaning to ask how you got rid of the cane. And you clearly don’t need it anymore.”
“It was Jesus. One of my neighbors just prayed the way Jesus told us to pray, and all my pain is gone. My hands too. I forgave Harry for something he did a long time ago and my hands just felt all better, no more arthritis.”
“This is miraculous! Oh, that’s wonderful!”
Gladys nodded. Recounting some of her blessings added to her already upbeat day. Then she got a challenge.
Maureen held out her right hand and said, “Do you think he could heal my sore wrist. The doctor says no more cortisone shots, next time it’s surgery.”
This was new territory, for Gladys, so, of course, she checked with Jesus. At least, she started to check with Jesus, but he stepped right up beside her and put his hand just over Maureen’s, not quite touching it yet.
“Go ahead and put your hand under hers, and we can heal it,” he said.
Gladys followed his lead, cradling Maureen’s right hand in her own.
“Now say, ‘I command this wrist to be restored to health, and pain-free,’” he said.
> The word “command” threw Gladys off, but she was already in uncharted waters, so she didn’t hesitate for long.
“Okay, I pray that Jesus commands this wrist to be completely well,” she said. She realized right away that she had botched the wording, but hoped for some compensation from her invisible companion.
Maureen said, “Oh,” and she started to flex her wrist up and down. “It feels very warm, like when you rub menthol ointment into it.” She said this like she was reporting her lab results to her biology teacher.
“Does it still hurt?” Gladys said.
“Yes, a bit, but the warmth feels good.”
“Go again,” Jesus said. “This time just say ‘be healed.’”
Gladys reached for Maureen’s wrist again and pronounced those two words, as Jesus instructed, glad for a simpler approach, especially with so much uncertainty about how this all works.
“Oh,” Maureen said again, this time with more feeling. “Oh, my. That feels better.” She started snapping her wrist up and down, almost violently. Gladys thought that, if it wasn’t injured before, those brisk pops up and down would certainly require medical attention. But Maureen was smiling.
“No pain,” she said triumphantly, her head held high and her eyes sparkling.
“All better?” Gladys said, the inflexion of her question revealing a modicum of surprise.
“Yes, completely better.” Maureen declared her liberation and then grabbed Gladys in a hug around her shoulders. Jesus took advantage of the opportunity and layered his arms over the two women.
Once more, Maureen said, “Oh,” and then she started laughing, a hiccuppy laugh, up and down. Her voice jumped in and out, as if she was trying to speak but couldn’t get a word out. She seemed a bit hysterical to Gladys. But it was, apparently, happy hysterics.
“I’m so glad I came over. I never would have thought so much could happen. I’m feeling so fine now.” She swayed a bit as she spoke.
Gladys wondered whether Maureen was fit to drive, but that thought was interrupted by a black sedan pulling up in front of the house. She could see Katie looking out the window at her. Maureen saw the car and took her cue.
Hearing Jesus (Seeing Jesus Book 2) Page 19