“When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD.” (Exodus 34:29)
I want to tell you a story today before time takes it away from me. Only a few have been privy to the details thus far, but you need to know them as well. The moment is now because this is the moment God has ordained for such a telling. It’s a story about the face of an angel.
My angel. His face.
On May 31st, Jadon will graduate from Scotland Christian Academy. Nearly eight months ago, Jadon’s graduation wasn’t even on our radar. His survival was. On September 14, 2018, Jadon suffered a traumatic brain injury when a tree fell on him during Hurricane Florence. His skull was fractured, the crack stretching from the top of one ear, across his head to the top of his other ear. In addition, he had two brain bleeds that, without immediate intervention, would cause him to bleed out within a couple of hours. If you’ve been following along, then you know the rest of the story. Jadon’s survival is nothing short of a miracle. You can read more about it here.
What I’m about to tell you brings additional texture and layers to his miracle. I cannot explain it otherwise except to say that I trust fully in the details, in the way they arrived to my heart, and in the witness of the Holy Spirit to my spirit as they were being spoken to me.
On the night of Jadon’s accident, a group of alumni from Asbury University were meeting at their annual board meeting in Wilmore, KY. I grew up in Wilmore and graduated from Asbury. Both Wilmore and Asbury have a wide stretch across the globe. One of my friends, Sarah, is on the board. On Friday night, she was scrolling through her Facebook feed when she came across my urgent request for prayer. We were on our way to Charlotte through the turbulent storm, and, over the course of that three-hour drive, I would periodically give my readers an update of our progress. I asked them to, “… pray us in to Charlotte.” Sensing the urgency of my request, Sarah asked those gathered at the meeting if they could pray. They did so on a couple of different occasions.
Fast forward to Sunday when I received a Facebook message from a complete stranger, a woman who knew Sarah and who was in attendance at that same alumni meeting. She asked me if I could give her a call at my earliest convenience. At this point, Jadon had made it to Charlotte, made it through surgery, but was currently in a coma. The response we had received from friends, family, and strangers was overwhelming, so much so that I quickly had to install some parameters around my time. Accordingly, I wasn’t able to give everyone access to my heart in the way I would have desired. However, there was something about this particular Facebook message that led me to make that call to a complete stranger on Monday, September 17th.
During our conversation, my new friend comforted me by sharing with me a vision she had during the alumni group’s prayer time on Friday night as Jadon was being transported to Charlotte. She told me that, on occasion, God speaks to her through visions and that he wouldn’t let her rest until she shared this particular one with me. I’m thankful for God’s insistence in the matter. Her witness changed the trajectory of my thinking.
In her vision, she saw Jadon surrounded by a myriad of angels who had completely encircled his body. In particular, one angel stood out; he was cradling Jadon’s head. No one could touch Jadon without going through the angels’ presence. She also could see Billy and me crying over our son. She asked the Lord about the meaning of her vision … about if these angels were coming to take Jadon home to heaven or were they there to escort him to the hospital? After her conversation with me on Monday, she had her answer; she understood the significance of the angel cradling Jadon’s head, and I understood the significance of her sharing her vision with me.
Jadon was being protected and preserved by a heavenly dispatch of angels. My fears were relieved, and I knew that God had his hands all over my son’s body and my son’s future.
One of the most earnest prayers my husband and I prayed over Jadon while he was “asleep” was that God would whisper words of healing comfort to him, that Jadon would know deep in his spirit that he belonged to God and that God was, indeed, his closest and best companion. That in the days to come, Jadon would awaken with a heart bursting forth with a testimony of his Father’s grace and mercy … that the words spoken “in quiet” would become an eventual out loud witness to the world. That, going forward, everyone who spends even a moment with Jadon would see his radiance and know that he has, like Moses, been in the presence of God.
Eight months later, God is answering our prayers. Jadon’s story no longer belongs to just us. It belongs to the world … to you. And while Jadon doesn’t have any memory of those “quiet” days in the hospital, he has been radically changed because of them. His radiance is blinding and his testimony is life-giving to anyone willing to listen.
Jadon has the face of an angel because Jadon has been next to Jesus. Close proximity to the Divine is just that powerful, friends. When we spend time with God, we radiate the witness of his glory. Perhaps this is the closest we’ll come to catching a glimpse of heaven on earth, and who of us couldn’t use a little more of that … a little more of the sacred spilling onto the scenes of our lives?
The face of an angel. Jadon’s. Yours. Mine.
Find the “quiet” this week. Allow God to do what only he can do in that silent space reserved for just you and him. What will emerge is what this world needs.
A radiant people who hold the testimony of a glorious God! Indeed, a little bit of heaven on earth. As always…
Peace for the journey,
Good days.
But not today. Today was a good day any way you turned it. In fact, this week has spent in good measure. Full and rich and close to perfect. Yes, there have been moments of chaos and times when my mind wandered beyond the boundaries of certainties. Tears have found their home upon my cheeks, and a pain or two has whispered its insistence into my heart.
But as I stand this night on the threshold of a seventh-day pause, I do so with a backward glance that yields a satisfactory nod to a week well-lived and to a God who isn’t capable of authoring otherwise. We sometimes think that he does … author otherwise. When pain, hardship, heartache and questions are our requirement, it’s difficult to reason the good of God.
Some days, like today, it’s an easy reach … an easy write … an easy prayer of thanks. Some days, not so much. Perhaps for many of you, there’s been nothing easy about this day. I’ve heard from a few of you. I want you to know that I walk with you. I covenant with you in prayer for some easy and some identifiable good to work its way onto the scene of your life. But just because we don’t always see God’s good doesn’t mean that it has been diminished because of our difficult.
