Rosanna Saw Jesus

As Chairmen of FOCAS (Fellowship of Christian Adult Singles) one of my responsibilities was to lead the spring retreat at Island Lake Retreat Center across Puget Sound from Seattle. During the retreat I was to lead a communion service after the Saturday night session. Just thinking about doing this was very overwhelming for me as I realized how unworthy I was to be leading this service.

All afternoon, as others were outside playing games on a sunny afternoon, I stayed inside for close to 4 hours reading the verses associated with communion, praying and asking God for help.  I kept thinking this is an important service that I am not worthy to lead and I am going to mess it up. Most of the time I was asking God for help because I knew I could not do it myself.

When the communion service began I asked everyone to stand up and gather around in a circle. We broke bread from a loaf and shared some grape juice together and then I led a very heart felt prayer. As the song ended a woman began to sing a praise song and we all joined in singing all the verses together. I do not know why, probably the LORD’s prompting, I  felt led to say a few words about communion being an opportunity for God to heal people and that we can healed by the blood of Jesus and asked people if there were any who wanted us to pray for them. One after another, several people came forward and sat as the rest of us gathered around and laid hands upon them. This went on for about an hour. Later on people testified to me of the healing that God had performed in their lives that they attributed to God working in them that night.

Right after the service was completed Rosanna came up to talk with me. She was on a COED softball team I coached. Rosanna told me that she was not that fond of me and almost left when she saw me leading the communion service. Then she said, “Terry that was not just you up there tonight. I saw Jesus standing behind you.” Praise God was all I could think of saying. My prayers had been answered. Jesus had been there to help me and God had used this service to minister to others for His glory.

Looking back now I realize that I was in the perfect place for God to use me at this communion service because I was totally dependent upon Him. Rosanna and probably others knew very well I was not the spiritual person who should be leading communion. To them and myself it was foolishness for me to be doing this. It was a life experience that made me realize what Paul meant when he wrote, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.”