Blast from the past: Stigmata

Strictly speaking this story isn't necessary to explain how we ended up attending a Baptist church for a few years. That story will be adequately covered by the previous post and the next one. But it fits nicely between them, because it took place after Wife had started regularly attending the Evangelical Baptist Church near us, and before the rest of us started attending as well. And maybe—just maybe—it might help add some layers of nuance to the generally dismal and dispiriting picture that I have painted of Wife in this blog. (See also, for example, this post here.)

One Sunday morning, Wife left for church at the normal time. By this time she had passed through the Pentecostal churches of he church-shopping phase, and had settled down at an Evangelical Baptist church not too far away from us. While she was gone, the boys and I did whatever we did. I assume they played in the back of the house somewhere. I might have done the breakfast dishes, or just sat in the living room to read.

At more or less the usual time, Wife's car pulled back into our driveway, a little sloppily. A minute or two went by. Then Wife opened the door and came out of the car, stumbling and lurching as if she were drunk. She got up to our stoop, came in the front door, and lurched her way into the living room, where she collapsed on the sofa. Her speech was not very coherent. And when I went over to ask if she was OK, I saw that the palms of her hands were a bloody mess.

So I wiped off her hands—I don't remember seeing a visible wound, or at least there was no fresh blood coming out once I cleaned them off—and asked her what happened. What follows is her story, as I remember it.

Well, the Senior Pastor gave a sermon about how the early Christians used to be able to do miracles, by the grace of God. But we don't see any miracles any more, not these days. And he asked, Why should that be the case? Don't we all believe that God is still as active today as He ever was?

So then he said he wanted to try an experiment, and see if we could do any healing miracles, right here and right now. He asked if anyone was willing to come up on the stage and pray for others to be healed, and I put up my hand. After my own healing in the Healing Rooms, I figured I had to. There were several others too. So we went up there.

Then he asked if anyone had anything they needed healing from. One of the assistant pastors, who is very old, said he was having long-term back trouble. He said his doctors hadn't been able to do anything about it. So the Senior Pastor asked him to come up, so we could pray for him.

Well, we prayed. We started by praying together, but in my mind I was also praying individually. I held my hands over his back, trying to feel where the problem was, and I think I felt a kind of hotspot. So I tried to focus on that spot, and I prayed that it would be healed and all better. And while I was praying, I felt my hands hurt and get all funny. And it felt like something happened. I don't know if it did. Anyway, after we were done praying the Senior Pastor said we could all sit down, and he finished up the service. And then I came home.

Of course I asked, How did your hands get all bloody?

I don't know. I didn't do anything with them except hold them over his back and pray for his healing.

Are you aware that the blood on your hands looks like stigmata?

Does it? … I mean, I guess. … I mean, I don't know what to say. … I'm just so exhausted right now.

Then she stumbled back to the bedroom to take a nap.

Over the next few Sundays, I'd ask Wife regularly if she had seen the old assistant pastor. And I asked her, when she did see him, please to ask him how his back was doing. In other words, I wanted to follow up empirically to determine whether anything had been healed or not. It took several weeks before she saw him; and when she did, she reported back that he said he felt "Fine." Of course that could mean anything.

But I do still wonder if she executed a miracle that day, just like the miracle that had eliminated her pseudotumor? I guess I'll never know.