“You’re right,” the girl admitted sheepishly.
I continued to follow the Holy Spirit’s prompting. “When you were a little girl, you loved the Lord with all your heart,” I told her. “But when you were around 17 or 18, you started to question the church and the Lord, and you left the Lord to start living with this man. Now the Lord is saying, ‘I want you to come home.'”
“But I can’t,” the girl said through her tears.
I didn’t stop. My nails weren’t finished. The Lord had a captive audience.
“You know, when you were a little girl, you were sexually abused by your father,” I said. “You always told the Lord that you wouldn’t have children with an abusive man. Now you are living with a man who’s abusive.
“A week ago, you were weeping and crying about this very thing. The Lord wants you to know that He wants you to be married, and He wants you to have a family. But you have to leave this man so He can heal your life.”
“I can’t do it,” she cried. “I can’t. I can’t leave him right now.”
My nails were finished, and my time was up.
“The Lord will send another messenger,” I said.
Let me ask you: Could you be that messenger? What if you were the next one to have your nails done by this young lady? Would you be the one to tell her, between the buffing and the polishing, what the Lord wants her to hear?
I want to share one more story with you. It happened about 15 years ago, and it changed my life.
I went into a print shop, and across the plastic counter from me was a man who was probably in his 70s. As we talked about my printing project, I suddenly saw a spirit on this man. Instantly I knew he was going to have a stroke on the left side of his heart.
“How many blue copies do you need? How many yellow copies?” he asked.
I gave him the numbers. I didn’t say anything about the stroke.
“Come back in an hour,” he said.
I left the shop, got into my van and drove to a nearby fast-food restaurant to grab lunch. Then I returned to the print shop parking lot to eat and wait.
About 10 minutes later, I heard sirens. Four emergency vehicles were speeding down the street in my direction.
Wow. I wonder where the action is, I thought. Then I realized the vehicles were pulling up to the print shop.
“Oh, no!” I cried, jumping out of the van. I found the elderly man on the floor of the shop, gasping for breath. Immediately I began to pray for him.
The paramedics came in a few moments later and saw me praying over his body.
“What happened?” they asked.
“He’s having a stroke,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“God told me,” I responded.
The paramedics took over from there, and I went back to my van. As I drove away, I began to weep.
“Lord, I saw it!” I cried.
“That’s right. You saw it,” He said.
“But Lord, I missed it!”
“That’s right. You missed it,” He responded.
“Lord, I don’t know how to do this!” I sobbed. “There will be other people on the ground dying, and I’m afraid. I don’t know how to get across that stupid plastic counter and say, ‘I see something. Can I pray for you?'”
