16 CIRCLE OF THE SACRED TRUST

16 CIRCLE OF THE SACRED TRUST

"What will you be doing on the afternoon of the eleventh?" Nita asked the boys nonchalantly as they settled her back in her wide bed. "Maybe you could come by and spend some time with me." It was still a few days away.

One of them had a class to attend: the other said sure, he would drop by. Nita smiled and closed her eyes, deeply satisfied. She couldn't tell them what was going to happen, but she didn't want them to miss out on the glorious event she knew it would be.

The next morning Nita's Buddhist attendant began the usual routine of washing and dressing her. While she changed the linens, she again put Nita in the wheelchair near the window, with her Bible on the bookrest on her lap. Nita strained to see the words, but some days it took forty minutes to get through a single verse of Scripture, and today was no different. When the attendant transferred her back to bed she knelt down with her back to the bed to straighten the dresser drawers. Nita looked down at her, and it occurred to her for the first time how long she had spent with this Buddhist lady. Now, in a few days, they would be separated - and Nita had never spoken to her about accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. The woman had observed plenty at close range: people had prayed hundreds of times in the hospital and the apartment; Nita had spent hours in prayer, and more hours reading her Bible. It was clear to the woman that her patient believed in God.

But now an inner voice prompted Nita: "Tell her." She waited for the attendant to turn around.

"Do you know something? I'm going to get well," she mouthed carefully.

The attendant smiled with kindness and sorrow at once, as if to say, "I would like to believe it if I could."

"Yes," she answered, "that's why I've been working so hard, day and night, for so many months. What else do you think I'm doing this for?"

Nita was amused. "Do you know my God is going to heal me?" she asked.

The woman's face dropped pathetically as if to say, "What a shame, you hopeless vegetable, that you're losing your mind as well." But she recovered in a moment, shook her head solemnly, and said, "Yes."

Nita knew better. She had not taken her seriously at all. Nita decided to make a more lasting impression on her.

"Bring me a piece of paper and a pen."

Now the woman laughed. It was comical for Nita to make such a request, with her fingers badly twisted. But she brought a pen and the cardboard backing of a scratch pad to humour her, and slipped the pen through the fingers as best she could, under her first and third fingers. Nita could not lift her hand off the bed, so the attendant slipped the paper between the bedsheet and Nita's hand. Then, while she held the paper steady, Nita summoned every ounce of available will power and painstakingly dragged her hand across the page, scrawling a message:

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11TH, 1977 3:30 P.M.

The woman looked at it quizzically.

"Keep it," Nita said without explanation. "And don't keep it here. Keep it in your own room." She didn't want the woman to think when the day came that it had been tampered with in any way. She wanted to know, beyond any shadow of doubt, that Nita's God had done what He said He was going to do.

She wondered whether to tell Colton - wondered whether she would feel the necessary release from the Lord when he arrived later in the morning.

She heard him come through the front door, and she knew his routine. He always paused to quiz the attendant, to find out how many teaspoons of broth Nita had taken, how many times she had vomited or fainted or choked for air. Then he walked on into Nita's room, and she expected to hear the usual opening question: "How are you today?" But Colton had been talking to his Father, and He had heard something.

"What did God tell you?" he asked Nita pointedly.

Nita was taken aback. But she answered him cunningly with a question of her own.

"What about?"

Colton looked through her.

"What did God tell you?" he said again, with demand. Nita had not even hinted to Colton or Suzanne about the voice, nor its message, nor the confirmation she had received in Colton's church. But somehow Colton had sensed the turning of the tide. She grinned at him. She knew she was about to see a spectacle of jubilation; it was Colton's way.

"God told me He is going to heal me on the eleventh of February at 3:30 in the afternoon."

But Colton did not exult as she expected. Instead, he stood there, mesmerized, humbled and quiet, taking in the full import of what she was saying, realizing that God was already in the process of doing something so miraculous that he could not completely grasp it.

"What do you want me to do about it?" he finally asked softly.

Nita began to share the thoughts and inclinations that God had given her. She wanted people present for the miracle, to witness what God was going to do. She wanted no unbelief in the vicinity when her Saviour came to her - only the company of true believers.

"No doubting Thomases while the Great Physician is at work," she said emphatically.

She wanted her mother close by. And medical experts who could document the authenticity of the healing.

But she made it clear, wagging an imaginary finger in Colton's face: he was not to tell anyone what was going to happen. She did not want anyone around to talk disbelievingly. No one was to know about the miracle in advance. God had sealed her lips. Much later she would realize why God had silenced her. He didn't want anyone talking her out of her miracle.

The preacher and the patient agreed together and prayed together, then Colton left. Nita lay awake after he had gone, unable to calm the fomenting excitement she was feeling.

As far as she was concerned, she was already healed. She had already begun to exist in the future, her mind and body as free as they had ever been. She was already living beyond February 11th. She rejoiced constantly, brimming with anticipation. She was convinced her miracle was en route. Later, those closest to her would recall the change in her personality even before the healing.

She laughed when she thought of this happening to her - of all people! Nita had always been the most sceptical Spirit-filled Christian she knew. She called herself "doubting Thomas's oldest daughter." She had never easily swallowed the miracle stories. The fantastic tales of God's unusual workings were fine for others - but now she was caught in the middle of one!

The agony was not in believing it, but in not being able to tell her precious mother or her grieving brother. She looked at them, worn with anguish, their faces creased with months of worry, and she begged her Father to let her ease their burden. But no release came. Nita had learned the hard way to obey the Lord, and she knew God wanted her to hold her peace.

But even this peculiar sadness couldn't quench her emotions and she never looked back. She was continuously bursting with excitement, as if the miracle had actually occurred.

Colton's guest, Syvelle Phillips, was still in town. He was one of the greatest believers in supernatural healing that Colton knew. Syvelle's own mother had been miraculously healed when he was a teenager. Colton asked Nita if she would allow him to bring his guest to the apartment to pray for her. She agreed. It was an honour.

Syvelle sat and looked at her with pity in his eyes. Besides her own deformities, she had attached deformities as well. She was surrounded by sandbags and wearing her hulking metal calipers, which ran the full length of her legs and kept them from shrinking to different sizes as her hands already had.

Syvelle ministered to her with bravado, then prayed for her.

Colton smiled a broad smile.

"I believe God is going to heal Nita," he said to Syvelle as the prayer came to an end.

Syvelle nodded pleasantly and smiled in general agreement, just as so many others had nodded and smiled so many times over the months, each time Colton had spoken in the fullness of faith.

Nita looked at the visitor and a little green light blinked on inside her. She knew she should tell this American preacher about the miracle. She related her story matter of factly.

Syvelle continued his nodding, but he couldn't hold the smile. He looked toward Colton, to see if he had accepted the whole story. It was clear that he had.

"Have you been reading Betty Baxter's story?" Syvelle asked her. Betty Baxter, had been healed dramatically years before in the United States and had also declared the date of her healing in advance.

"Yes, I have her tapes," Nita responded.

That was enough for Syvelle. He felt Nita had probably made herself believe her own story after dwelling on somebody else's.

Outside the apartment, the American preacher quizzed Colton. How could he go along with this datesetting business? Syvelle could accept the fact of Nita's eventual healing - but the audible voice, the date and the hour, were a little extreme. It probably was the subtle suggestion of the Baxter tapes combined with so many months of despair. It just couldn't be!

Colton was adamant. He would not be shaken from his position. Nita had heard God's voice and she would be well again at 3:30 on February 11.

Syvelle gave up with Colton and attached himself to Suzanne, Colton's wife. He talked to her pointedly about facing reality. He was concerned for his friend's health. Colton had been working feverishly on the new church building, and Syvelle was afraid that he would be shattered if the miracle failed to occur.

But there was nothing to be done. Colton could not be persuaded otherwise.

Finally Syvelle made Suzanne a final last-ditch offer.

"If the miracle doesn't happen, and it's too much for Colton to take, call me," the preacher said with genuine compassion. "I'll come back here to Sri Lanka and take him home with me to the States for a while. The rest might do him good."

Syvelle headed back to America alone, deeply concerned about the future of his friend Colton. This Asian girl could be the death of his dearest friend.

Nita would bring one more person into the elite sacred circle.

Brother Andrew, immortalized as "God's Smuggler," had been scheduled to speak at Colton's church on the ninth and tenth of February. Hundreds of people who never normally attended would show up to hear the renowned man of God who had carried thousands of Bibles behind the Iron Curtain. Nita had never met him, but she wanted to hear him, so on the first evening of his visit Colton's boys carried her up to the balcony of the church and put her in her obscure corner to avoid the limelight.

Throughout the sermon Nita felt Andrew's beautiful piercing blue eyes on her, as if he were scanning her brain. It made her again self-conscious about her physical condition - and embarrassed. Afterwards Colton brought Andrew up to the balcony and introduced them to each other.

Nita knew in a moment that this man should also bear the sacred trust. Quietly, with Colton interpreting her noiseless words, Nita shared the great sacred secret with Brother Andrew.

He exploded in praise to God. Probably more than any of them, Brother Andrew was accustomed to the miraculous. Among other things, he had seen God close the eyes of communist border guards as he smuggled Bibles and other illegal religious tracts behind the Iron Curtain. But the news about Nita turned his spiritual motor on, and he poured out thanks to God in a bubbly unknown language.

In the sacred circle of trust there were four believers and one sceptic.