Garry R. Kennedy

While working in Criminal Investigations for the Internal Revenue Service in downtown Fresno California, I would usually take a walk on the outdoor mall after eating a short lunch at the office.  Another employee who I didn’t know asked if she could join me, as she noticed I took walks and she wanted to lose some weight.  I really liked my time walking alone so I could think about my book that I was writing, “The Jesus Tree Ornaments,” but determined that maybe the Lord wanted me to witness to her about Him, so I said yes to her request.  We walked together for several weeks and I did talk to her a lot about her relationship with God, her family, and work.  Like a lot of people she believed in God but really knew very little about Him.  I was determined to challenge her into knowing more about Him based upon the Bible.

A couple of days every week behind our office there is a small farmer’s market where local people bring their produce to sell.  One day while walking back with my friend from the mall and approaching the farmer’s market, I noticed an older woman walking on the sidewalk towards us. I suspected that she was a homeless woman by her appearance.  Her hair was mostly gray and her clothing was loose and worn.  There is a Catholic charity just a few blocks from where she was walking from and it was not unusual for down and out or homeless people to be around our office location.  Nevertheless, I instantly had an uneasy feeling about her.  I don’t know what it was about her that made me so apprehensive as she obviously was not any apparent threat to me.   I just felt that I needed to be wary of her and to give her plenty of room to pass by me without me actually touching her.   With my friend walking to the right of me I did my best to move closer to her as we approached the woman, who was to the left of me.  As we passed her I did not make any physical contact with the woman, but something did make contact with me.

Have you ever felt an electrical shock when making a slight physical contact with someone else?  Well, that is what I felt on my left arm as I walked by this woman, only we did not touch each other.  I believe we were close to a foot apart.  It was not a small shock like after you walk across a carpet and touch someone, it was much stronger and actually stung my forearm making me grab my arm, pull it back, and say something about it to my friend.

She only looked at me, wondering I’m sure, what it was that I was talking about.   We stopped and both turned to look at the woman who was now about twenty feet away from us.  The woman had also stopped and was looking directly at me.  Various other people were now walking to and from the farmer’s market, across the sidewalk making a lot of noise, and at times blocking my complete view of the woman.  However, she said something to me that made me wonder if I had heard her correctly.

“I see the light in you!” was what I heard from the woman.

I looked at my friend and asked her, “What did she say?”  Not certain that I had heard the woman correctly.

She shrugged as if she didn’t know, and we both looked at the woman again.

“I see the light in you!” the woman, still looking at me, said again.  She then turned and walked away from us.

I wanted to ask my friend again if she heard what the woman had said but felt too foolish to pursue it with her.  First, I receive this electric shock without touching the woman, and then the woman has this strange message for me.  This was too much for me to absorb at the moment so I let it drop, and we went back into the office to work.  Not too long after this event my friend stopped walking with me.

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“You sound like all the other church people with your religious jargon, complained Thomas mildly, “but let me see if I understand you correctly.  God sent His only son down here to earth to be born, to grow up…sinless, so He could die on a cross to take away my sin, so I would then be found acceptable to God.  Is that right?” asked Thomas.

“Yes, just as God provided a sacrifice for Abraham’s son, He also has become our provider.  And as Jesus had to be born in the flesh to save you, you need to be born in the spirit to be saved.  You need to be born again, Thomas.”

“Born again?  How can I be born again?” asked Thomas.

“By faith, in the same way that Jesus was born into the flesh.  He was not born of natural descent, human decision, or of a man’s will…He was born of God.”

The Jesus Tree Ornaments, A Father’s Offering, Chapter 12, pages 198 & 199.