A Different Direction

I worked in a moderate sized office for several years. After about five years there, the Lord impressed upon my heart that it was time to make my faith in Jesus Christ better known and to speak of the grace and mercy of God more specifically to my co-workers.

So I began to pray, but nothing happened. I asked for open doors and the ones already opened either remained the same or began to shut. My ministry as a Christian did not expand, God gave me no new opportunities to speak, and it seemed my prayers had no effect at all. In fact, for a long time I felt like my prayers were stones dropping into water without creating ripples.

Then a dearly loved friend, a man I once had hoped to marry, was unexpectedly diagnosed with cancer. The news destroyed me emotionally. I continued to work and follow my routines, but I was blindsided by grief and fear. I prayed daily, sometimes hourly, that God would heal him and give him back his health.

For awhile the medical procedures appeared to be working. My friend felt better and his doctor believed that the cancer was receding. We all became optimistic as he began to resume his lifestyle and think about the future again. But then restorative surgery revealed that the cancer had not been beaten but instead had spread and was now uncontrollable and untreatable. 

Everyone went from optimism to bleak despair when the prognosis was made known. Even my friend’s doctor was horrified and despondent that nothing stemmed the course of this vicious disease.

My friend died within 18 months, though he fought for survival longer than expected and held on until the very end of his strength.

From the beginning I told my co-workers of his cancer, keeping them apprised of my commutes on weekends to his town two hours away. Once I even brought him to an office holiday party where everyone met and encouraged him to continue his good fight. Some of my co-workers knew how much of my heart was engaged in the battle and the efforts I made to support and sustain him. They watched me struggle with my fears and saw hope turn to anguish when the cancer’s tide turned against his body.

By this time I had stopped praying for a ministry to others in the office; I was simply praying for a miracle and for private strength to maintain my equilibrium. Immediate circumstances overwhelmed any unanswered petitions for people in my workplace. Now all my prayers were for my friend’s physical survival.

After my friend died I began the long journey of mourning and learning to live with a huge hole in my life. And then, just then, God began to answer my prayers.

A few weeks after the funeral, co-workers began to comment on my experience. More than one asked, “How did you survive this? What keeps you from being overwhelmed? Why aren’t you railing against the unfairness of it? What has kept you balanced when you’ve lost someone you loved so much?”

I was dumbfounded. My faith in God had never wavered despite the fact that He had not granted my request for healing even after months of earnest, heartfelt, bone-deep entreaty. But I had not considered what my co-workers observed as I struggled, hoped and then mourned. Suddenly it dawned on me – God had answered my prayers. He simply approached them from a totally different direction. “My ways are not your ways,” He said in Isaiah 55:8, and here was irrefutable evidence.

God opened doors through my responses to the death of my friend. The office saw that I harbored a hope borne of Truth, not of circumstances. My faith had been my personal business while life progressed well, but it became an object of interest and curiosity when God allowed a major strike against my beloved friend, my personal security, and my peace. People watched as I learned firsthand, “My Grace is sufficient for you, for my Power is perfected in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9), and “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

People noticed that God was present and He sustained my heart when it was shattering with grief. Life was unbearably hard, and God was still there. He answered my prayers through an unpredictable pathway. It was not what I expected but the result was what I prayed: “Lord, let the office know who You are through me.” God was faithful and He gave me my heart’s desire.