(I was moved to tears by the Holy Spirit, learned a hidden truth, and prayed for a colleague. Through this experience, I realized that prayers of intercession are surely heard.)
At the very first company where I worked, there was a woman named K. She had a very straightforward personality, which was rather unusual for a woman at that time, and because of that, some people disliked her. Personally, I thought that such a person was far better than someone who was two-faced.
One day during lunch break, I was chatting with some coworkers when one of them said, “Hey, do you know who the three ‘most wicked women’ in our company are?” I could more or less guess who they meant, but since it was not a pleasant topic, I replied, “Aren’t the people who talk about others behind their backs far more wicked?” The coworker answered, “You’re right,” and the conversation stopped.
K herself knew that she was disliked, and so she kept her distance from the other women even more. I felt she always looked gloomy and somewhat difficult to approach, but I never disliked her. On the contrary, I was interested in her strong individuality, which was rare among ordinary women.
One day, the two of us ended up having lunch together. She was much older than I was, and I sensed a deep darkness about her. When I invited her to lunch, she even said, “Are you sure someone like me is okay?” During the meal we talked about ordinary things, but I strongly felt that she was carrying a very deep suffering that she could not tell anyone about, though I had no idea what it was.
When lunch ended and we were waiting for the elevator, I patted her on the shoulder and encouraged her, saying, “K-san, please stay strong. You’ll be all right. Do your best.”
After we parted, I went into the restroom. Suddenly, an overwhelming sadness came over me. Large tears began to fall without any clear reason, and I could not stop crying. I did not understand why I was crying, but I felt that the Holy Spirit must have been showing me something.
Shortly afterward, a male coworker told me that she was having an affair with her supervisor, and that everyone in the company knew about it. That was why she had never been able to make female friends at work. I then understood what she had meant when she asked me during lunch, “Doesn’t it bother you to eat with me?”
In Christianity, adultery is considered a very serious and frightening sin. It was understandable that she was looked down upon. Even though it would have been natural for someone like me, who is rather strict about such matters, to think that way, for some reason I found myself thinking, “Apart from whether she goes to hell or not, human beings are truly weak creatures.”
The reason I had cried in the restroom was probably because the Holy Spirit had allowed me to feel her suffering. So I prayed to the Lord quietly: “Lord, I do not know all the circumstances, but I believe this is something that goes against the proper way of life. Please help her.” I prayed for her in secret. She had given all of her youth to that supervisor. They worked at the same department and had known each other for many years, so from a human point of view, it seemed impossible for them to part ways.
Yet before long, she refused to go along with the situation any further and suddenly decided to quit her job and move away. The supervisor apparently did not want to let her go and desperately tried to find where she was, but she firmly refused to give him her phone number. She made a clean break from him.
Later, she left her next job as well and opened a pub, since she enjoyed drinking. There, a regular customer—a man sixteen years younger than she was—proposed to her, saying, “Close the bar and marry me.” I heard from a former coworker that although she struggled with the decision, she eventually married him and is now living happily.
Through this experience, I learned that Jesus listens more readily to prayers of intercession for others than to prayers for oneself. That is because our personal prayers can easily become self-centered without our realizing it.
にほんブログ村
にほんブログ村
多言語学習ランキング
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