Mercy and Grace on a Rainy Day

At thirteen, I'd lived ten years in Thailand (with a jaunt to the US at four), followed by a year and a half in Central New York and a few months in Pennsylvania. The possibility of going back to Thailand was vague—maybe we weren't returning, maybe we were—although now I know my dad had resigned from the mission and was preparing to do other ministries. I hoped for home, I missed my childhood friends, and I worried that I would never see their faces again. Besides all that, my siblings and I were having a socially bewildering time of it in Pennsylvania, where we'd moved during my seventh-grade Christmas break.

Around this period, I had a mystical experience that could have stemmed from multiple ordinary causes—and likely is explained by all of them, as well as the Lord being kind to me.

It was a wet day, probably spring. I'd been wandering indoors, ruminating on what if—what if I never see my friends again, half aware that I didn't need to dwell on the topic, and that my cogitating was like picking at a small wound. I could have left the sore spot alone and found something else to do. Yet going to the open door of a common room, feeling alone despite the people milling around behind me, I leaned my head against the doorframe, staring out at the rain and fretting.

Unexpectedly, within a few seconds, the sight and sound of rain calmed me. And then, replacing my teenage angst, was a powerful impression: It's going to be okay, Angie. I went about my day at peace, with my misery gone, and that wound was left alone to heal.

Even at my impressionable age, I'm not sure how much I believed that God still whispered messages to His saints. Special revelation, rife with pitfalls, was not really promoted during my upbringing that I can remember, and like many Protestants, I still believe that while God can make any exceptions He wants, He primarily communicates with Christians through the Bible. What happened to me could have been the sight and scent of rain, it could have been teenage drama, it could have arisen from an experience I'd read about and wanted for myself. It could have been any combination of these.

But the fact is, after the scene at the doorframe, my self-inflicted struggle ceased. I stopped dwelling on possibilities and went about, not just my day, but my life. The fact is, the God of the Bible is merciful and gracious, giving us what we have not earned and sparing us at times from what we bring on ourselves.

I went on with my life, and almost forty years later, while I've seen my friends' faces again, I have not been back to the country where I had such a sweet childhood. And so many things have happened, mostly wonderful, some hard, all full of good gifts. I've come to realize, too, that the experience of returning to my childhood home would not have matched my longings.

I've never had such an impression again. But the fact is, it was going to be okay—it was going to be very okay.