Hello everyone. I'm in the middle of a difficult spot in my faith after leaving a denomination that did a lot of damage to me and I find that writing has been very therapeutic. Lately I've been rediscovering who God is and writing this particular story of something that happened to me before I was saved has helped. I plan on making a few more revisions/rewrites before I have a good copy and want to give that copy to the person it involves at some point. Let me know what you guys think and I hope you enjoy reading. 
“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
----Hebrews 13:2, KJV
I knew something was wrong that day in late February when I walked into my clarinet teacher’s office for my lesson. A normally reserved yet upbeat woman, she sat in a hard-backed chair up against the wall, curled into herself. It was doubtful she was cold. The small office with its large wall mirror, green and white braided rug, and hanging shelves of various books and CD’s was not drafty or the least bit chilly, though outside a thick layer of snow coated the city.
Dr. XXXXX was friendly as I came in, sat down and put my reed on. Not feeling up to playing that day, she instead was going to watch me from her perch. Figuring she was playing the part of “the audience” in order to mimic a studio performance I thought nothing of it, as she had made it her personal project to “cure” me of performance anxiety. Yet at the back of my mind looking at her face bare of makeup and the way she was huddled in that chair…..something kept telling me this wasn’t right. I was a little bit perplexed as I left her office that day but tried not to think much of it.
Later on in the next two weeks the thing I call my “radar” started to pick up more and more of what my intuition was telling me. Something just wasn’t right. Dr. XXXXX looked extremely tired during the XXXXX Symphony Orchestra Concert that Saturday evening, not even looking up to wave to me when I went down at intermission to make goofy faces at her while she was on stage. When Concert Band had our performance that Wednesday evening, she was the only one of the woodwind faculty in attendance who was nowhere to be seen. Finally, that following weekend during her faculty recital when after dedicating one of the pieces she was performing to a family member, she almost broke down crying on stage. My suspicions were confirmed. A few years later when I brought this up to two friends who remembered what was going on during this period of time, neither of them had noticed it.
So it wasn’t just my overactive imagination: there was definitely something going on. My stomach was in knots guessing what could be happening as my mind tried to figure out the puzzle pieces. Seeing the email on Monday morning that said “my sister, whom I am very close with, has cancer” gave me relief to know what was going on, but at the same I could hear the devastation my professor’s voice pouring out from the typed text on the screen. I could only imagine the pain she was feeling, and it was as if a sword was piercing my own heart.
During this period of my life I was a freshman in college majoring in music education. I was also paying my own way. Most of my income came from working at a discount grocery store where I’d started the previous summer after graduation. The job was rough, I wasn’t making very much money, and some of the customers and people I worked with were downright rude. My one saving grace was a few regulars who knew me by name, talked to me about school and life, and had become sort of my friends.
Then one day out of the blue, someone new came along.
To this day I don’t know her name and can’t remember if I ever asked it, but I will never forget the face of that woman who became one of my regular customers. Gray hair, streaked with white, cut short and styled in a perm. Pearl earrings. Large hazel-gray eyes with deep laugh lines and a kind twinkle. A mouth that was always smiling and speaking loving words. Whenever I waited on her she always wore a gray hooded coat, tan pants, and crisp white tennis shoes that looked like they had just been taken out of a box. Oddly enough she claimed she walked almost everywhere she went.
Her purchases were often simple: a bag of candy or fruit, or a bottled soft drink. She never paid with anything but cash, and never bought anything that would require her to show identification. It seemed that she would be shopping there every single time I came in to work, and after awhile I thoroughly looked forward to waiting on her. Something about her made me feel safe. It was like I could tell her the nastiest, ugliest, darkest secrets I had and she wouldn’t judge me or think badly of me. Never once did I hear an unkind word come out of her mouth.
Meanwhile back at school things continued to go downhill for my teacher. A friend said that a phone call that came during her lesson time made Dr. XXXXX burst into tears. She always looked tired in studio class. It was like she was wasting away, and it killed me inside.
One Thursday afternoon I came into work with all of this on my mind. It was a busy day and not a very good one. Rude people, too many complicated purchases, bad weather, my boss was in a snippy mood, the works. I was stressed out on top of it, and about more than what my teacher was going through.
And then she came to my line with her purchase. Midway through our conversation she looked at me as if she were waiting for me to tell her something.
“You seem to have something on your mind today. Is everything okay at school,” she asked. I mentioned that I was stressing out over how busy my major was and trying to save up money for tuition. She gently asked if there was something else, and I told her what was going on with my professor. As I relayed the details, her face gave way to a small smile at the corners, that knowing look still plastered there as if it had been carved by a sculptor.
“Don’t worry,” she said as I handed her the change from her purchase and the bag with her groceries. “I will be praying for you both. God knows what is going on and is in control.” She left the store that day and I did not see her for several weeks.
God is in control……that phrase echoed over and over in my head. It had been years since I stepped inside of the church that my parents took us to when we were little, but something about that made me want to go back. Suddenly, it was like this thing that was going on had become my personal mission. I began writing a prayer journal where I prayed daily for God’s intervention and healing in this situation. Every Sunday I woke up early and made my way to church. Even on days when I didn’t want to get up and go, something in the back of my mind would not let up until got up and dressed, and the tension would not let up until I drove in and parked in the parking lot of the church. During the worship time whenever the pastor would ask anyone who had a burden on their heart to literally “come and lay it on the altar”, I would go up. I got down on my knees and folded my hands, laid my forehead against the cool oiled wood as the soft music flooded my heart and mind, and I just prayed about the situation and quietly cried.
Slowly overtime I noticed things started to get better. Dr. XXXXX didn’t seem as on edge (or maybe she had just gotten better at disguising it, that I don’t know). The more I prayed, the more I had a sense that things were going to be fine.
One day in April I ran into my friend again. This time when she came into the store to shop, she did not come through my checkout line. Instead she approached me on her way out.
“I’ve been praying for you and your friend,” she said. “I was told to tell you not to worry. Everything is going to be fine.” After a friendly goodbye she started to exit the double doors. Turning around to look at me one last time, that gentle, knowing gaze reappeared in her eyes.
“And things will be fine for you, too.”
That day she left the store was the last time I ever saw my customer while I worked there. Even in the months to come when I moved on to my next job, I would still shop there regularly as its close to home. Not once did I ever see her walking the aisles or purchasing something and neither have I to this day. My professor’s sister made a full recovery and to my knowledge is in remission to this day. As for myself, the months to come were a very trying time in life as I was forced to take time off of school, which ultimately lead me to search out what my true purpose was here on earth. As it turns out, God had been calling me for a long time. Some things needed to happen, and yes, things are just fine for me now, too.
I believe in angels, God the Father, and Jesus Christ. I do not doubt that God can still use His heavenly messengers to communicate with His people today, and I believe my friend was really a member of the Heavenly Host sent down from above.
THE END
“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”
----Hebrews 13:2, KJV
I knew something was wrong that day in late February when I walked into my clarinet teacher’s office for my lesson. A normally reserved yet upbeat woman, she sat in a hard-backed chair up against the wall, curled into herself. It was doubtful she was cold. The small office with its large wall mirror, green and white braided rug, and hanging shelves of various books and CD’s was not drafty or the least bit chilly, though outside a thick layer of snow coated the city.
Dr. XXXXX was friendly as I came in, sat down and put my reed on. Not feeling up to playing that day, she instead was going to watch me from her perch. Figuring she was playing the part of “the audience” in order to mimic a studio performance I thought nothing of it, as she had made it her personal project to “cure” me of performance anxiety. Yet at the back of my mind looking at her face bare of makeup and the way she was huddled in that chair…..something kept telling me this wasn’t right. I was a little bit perplexed as I left her office that day but tried not to think much of it.
Later on in the next two weeks the thing I call my “radar” started to pick up more and more of what my intuition was telling me. Something just wasn’t right. Dr. XXXXX looked extremely tired during the XXXXX Symphony Orchestra Concert that Saturday evening, not even looking up to wave to me when I went down at intermission to make goofy faces at her while she was on stage. When Concert Band had our performance that Wednesday evening, she was the only one of the woodwind faculty in attendance who was nowhere to be seen. Finally, that following weekend during her faculty recital when after dedicating one of the pieces she was performing to a family member, she almost broke down crying on stage. My suspicions were confirmed. A few years later when I brought this up to two friends who remembered what was going on during this period of time, neither of them had noticed it.
So it wasn’t just my overactive imagination: there was definitely something going on. My stomach was in knots guessing what could be happening as my mind tried to figure out the puzzle pieces. Seeing the email on Monday morning that said “my sister, whom I am very close with, has cancer” gave me relief to know what was going on, but at the same I could hear the devastation my professor’s voice pouring out from the typed text on the screen. I could only imagine the pain she was feeling, and it was as if a sword was piercing my own heart.
During this period of my life I was a freshman in college majoring in music education. I was also paying my own way. Most of my income came from working at a discount grocery store where I’d started the previous summer after graduation. The job was rough, I wasn’t making very much money, and some of the customers and people I worked with were downright rude. My one saving grace was a few regulars who knew me by name, talked to me about school and life, and had become sort of my friends.
Then one day out of the blue, someone new came along.
To this day I don’t know her name and can’t remember if I ever asked it, but I will never forget the face of that woman who became one of my regular customers. Gray hair, streaked with white, cut short and styled in a perm. Pearl earrings. Large hazel-gray eyes with deep laugh lines and a kind twinkle. A mouth that was always smiling and speaking loving words. Whenever I waited on her she always wore a gray hooded coat, tan pants, and crisp white tennis shoes that looked like they had just been taken out of a box. Oddly enough she claimed she walked almost everywhere she went.
Her purchases were often simple: a bag of candy or fruit, or a bottled soft drink. She never paid with anything but cash, and never bought anything that would require her to show identification. It seemed that she would be shopping there every single time I came in to work, and after awhile I thoroughly looked forward to waiting on her. Something about her made me feel safe. It was like I could tell her the nastiest, ugliest, darkest secrets I had and she wouldn’t judge me or think badly of me. Never once did I hear an unkind word come out of her mouth.
Meanwhile back at school things continued to go downhill for my teacher. A friend said that a phone call that came during her lesson time made Dr. XXXXX burst into tears. She always looked tired in studio class. It was like she was wasting away, and it killed me inside.
One Thursday afternoon I came into work with all of this on my mind. It was a busy day and not a very good one. Rude people, too many complicated purchases, bad weather, my boss was in a snippy mood, the works. I was stressed out on top of it, and about more than what my teacher was going through.
And then she came to my line with her purchase. Midway through our conversation she looked at me as if she were waiting for me to tell her something.
“You seem to have something on your mind today. Is everything okay at school,” she asked. I mentioned that I was stressing out over how busy my major was and trying to save up money for tuition. She gently asked if there was something else, and I told her what was going on with my professor. As I relayed the details, her face gave way to a small smile at the corners, that knowing look still plastered there as if it had been carved by a sculptor.
“Don’t worry,” she said as I handed her the change from her purchase and the bag with her groceries. “I will be praying for you both. God knows what is going on and is in control.” She left the store that day and I did not see her for several weeks.
God is in control……that phrase echoed over and over in my head. It had been years since I stepped inside of the church that my parents took us to when we were little, but something about that made me want to go back. Suddenly, it was like this thing that was going on had become my personal mission. I began writing a prayer journal where I prayed daily for God’s intervention and healing in this situation. Every Sunday I woke up early and made my way to church. Even on days when I didn’t want to get up and go, something in the back of my mind would not let up until got up and dressed, and the tension would not let up until I drove in and parked in the parking lot of the church. During the worship time whenever the pastor would ask anyone who had a burden on their heart to literally “come and lay it on the altar”, I would go up. I got down on my knees and folded my hands, laid my forehead against the cool oiled wood as the soft music flooded my heart and mind, and I just prayed about the situation and quietly cried.
Slowly overtime I noticed things started to get better. Dr. XXXXX didn’t seem as on edge (or maybe she had just gotten better at disguising it, that I don’t know). The more I prayed, the more I had a sense that things were going to be fine.
One day in April I ran into my friend again. This time when she came into the store to shop, she did not come through my checkout line. Instead she approached me on her way out.
“I’ve been praying for you and your friend,” she said. “I was told to tell you not to worry. Everything is going to be fine.” After a friendly goodbye she started to exit the double doors. Turning around to look at me one last time, that gentle, knowing gaze reappeared in her eyes.
“And things will be fine for you, too.”
That day she left the store was the last time I ever saw my customer while I worked there. Even in the months to come when I moved on to my next job, I would still shop there regularly as its close to home. Not once did I ever see her walking the aisles or purchasing something and neither have I to this day. My professor’s sister made a full recovery and to my knowledge is in remission to this day. As for myself, the months to come were a very trying time in life as I was forced to take time off of school, which ultimately lead me to search out what my true purpose was here on earth. As it turns out, God had been calling me for a long time. Some things needed to happen, and yes, things are just fine for me now, too.
I believe in angels, God the Father, and Jesus Christ. I do not doubt that God can still use His heavenly messengers to communicate with His people today, and I believe my friend was really a member of the Heavenly Host sent down from above.
THE END
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