During a visit one day she told me that she had inoperable cancer, which had been diagnosed just days before my dad died. She wanted to be close to someone who had experienced death firsthand, and she wanted to know everything she could about what happened and why. It was the businesswoman in her that made Mary Anne want to have a plan and to understand as much as she possibly could. It was God’s invisible hand putting her together with those who would walk this way with her, experience her struggle, learn from her, and be there for her when she found Him. It was awesome and humbling to be part of it.

Mary Anne’s diagnosis was deadly. Her cancer, first discovered in the breast, had spread rapidly to both lungs and the lining of her chest wall. Her prognosis was three to four months. She lived for two and a half years. What exciting, searching, joyful, and difficult years they were! It was more than evident to me from the start that God loved Mary Anne dearly and wanted her to know Him well. Thus began her long and wonderful journey. Visiting her was like being in a church sanctuary. You wanted to take your shoes off because you felt as though you were on holy ground. The presence of grace was always evident as Mary Anne journeyed toward God, experiencing Him in many, many ways.

My prayer for Mary Anne over this long period of time had been, “Lord, put Your arms around her, hold her in Your tender, loving care, and help her to know she is safe with You.” One day while I was visiting, Mary Anne explained the first of many spiritual experiences she would eventually have. “I was not asleep,” she said to me very pointedly. “I was awake, and He came to me here in my room. He put His arms around me, and I felt so safe and warm.”

“That was Jesus,” I said to her.

“No, it wasn’t, Trudy, it was you,” she said with a lovely smile.

What does it mean? I wondered. Is this how God visits with His children, through fragile and broken clay pots like us? How does it happen that God should let our prayers be answered in such intimate and undeniable ways? It’s as though He is tapping us on the shoulder and saying, “Do you recognize Me?” It was the first of hundreds of times that God allowed me to see His hand so lovingly and intimately touch His children as He drew them home to Himself.

Mary Anne asked if I had a friend, a priest perhaps, who might come to visit her. I told her that I did. Although we had often spoken about God and His place in our lives, we had never spoken specifically about church or religion, so I was both surprised and happy about her question. I asked a wonderful young man, newly ordained, if he would visit her at home. He was so happy to be asked and would often sit up on the king-size bed with her and share what he had come to know about God and His great mercy and love. I don’t know who enjoyed their talks more, because they both seemed to love the give-and-take of shared ideas and they both told of their awareness of God’s grace in their midst. They spoke often and long into the night, the wounded healer, healing the wounded. Which was which? I wondered. It was an enormous gift to watch this relationship unfold for both of them.