'Out of the mouths. . .'

Although I had said I would not be writing at length about my struggle with depression, this is too wonderful to keep to myself.

There have been a very few occasions when I knew that God was speaking to me plainly, for example, in a small, seemingly insignificant healing at age 5, in the words of a guest preacher whom I usually found difficult to listen to, in the scripture passages prescribed by the Daily Office Lectionary, in the prayers of a friend and — twice in my life — in dreams I knew to be visions from God. This time he spoke words of comfort to me through the lips of a seven-year-old.

The other evening, as we were sitting at our dining room table after family prayers, Theresa looked up at me and said something quite unexpected and uncharacteristic that elicited from me first a gasp, then tears, then a hug: "Daddy, God will give you healing in the name of Jesus Christ."