This morning, I read, Be still, and know that I am God..(Psalm 46:10 NIV). I was reminded of another day after Thanksgiving, seventeen years ago. In the quiet of that evening, I heard a voice that seemed directly from God. Sitting by my husband’s bed in the hospital, I was discouraged and scared. He had been ill for so long and this time, spent nearly a week in the hospital. Nothing seemed to help. The doctors tried many medications and all they seemed to do was cause him to sleep. Looking back, perhaps that nearly comatose condition was just what he needed. Friday evening, the day after Thanksgiving, I watched him slumber, desperately wanting God to heal my husband. To take his pain away. I wondered if God had heard my anguished prayers. Then, in the dim room, I heard a voice singing nearby, a rich contralto voice lifting up old gospel hymns. I heard words like these:

Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on through the night…..

What a friend we have in Jesus…

There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God…

Come thou fount of every blessing….

The words soothed my breaking heart. They reminded me that though it seemed my prayers weren’t being answered, He had sent someone to remind me through the words in those songs, that they were being heard.

As I listened to the singing voice, I crept down the hall, moving toward the sound.  I saw a woman sitting at the bedside of a patient. I listened, encouraged. I tiptoed back to my husband’s room and sat by his bed, refreshed and renewed. The next day, I returned to the hospital to find my husband much better. They discharged him later that morning and for several weeks, his pain was lessened. On that night, the day after Thanksgiving Day, I experienced the peace that only God can give.

There’s so much more to the story, but I learned something that quiet evening, broken with the voice of someone singing.

What about you? Do you feel despair because God isn’t answering your prayers the way you want them to be answered? Are you in pain, or is someone in your life in pain? How about a loved one who lives far from you and you can’t be with them in their illness and confusion? Are you alone and miss a loved one who is now gone? Do you feel your prayers aren’t being answered?

I can tell you, even though I trusted God, that night I felt despair. But at just the right time, the voice singing the promises of God, soothed my questioning heart.

Looking back, I wonder, was it was an angel ministering to me? The next day, I returned to the room where I’d seen the woman singing, and the bed was empty. There was no patient nor anyone with the patient. The room empty, the bed neatly made.

I never asked anyone in the hospital about the patient, for it didn’t matter. In the stillness of the night, I heard a voice directly from God.

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