C.

C. is a young girl that works with me.  I didn't know much about her until last week.  I knew she was serious about her faith and she has a presence about her that tells you something about her spirit.  Lately though, I've sensed the difficulty of her journey.  On Saturday night, she mentioned in passing that her junior year of college was really hard--awful actually. Then on Sunday afternoon she mentioned that her parents had divorced recently. 
Sunday was a weird wedding.  The bride and groom (and shortly after everyone else) left their reception 2 hours early.  Anyways, we had some time on our hands because it was such a small crowd.  I usually take a break around sunset time.  I don't plan it that way, but it always seems to be the time where there is a lull and I'm tired of Lady Gaga and I make my way out back.  The back door opens into heaven--the heavens more precisely.  It's all cornfield, sky and quiet.  I just go out and breathe. 
C. began to notice and discreetly she started to join me. Sometimes we don't talk much.  She's the kind of person you can sit with in the quiet and not feel awkward.  I had a sense that for some reason she just wanted to be near me, but I wasn't sure why.  But on Sunday night I felt that pressure in my spirit and I sensed the Lord had prepared an opening for me to speak.  I asked her if the reason it was such a difficult year was because of her parent's split.  "Partly," she responded.  We talked about that for a little bit and then it was quiet again.  Then she started speaking quietly and I could feel the pain in her voice.  "I was dating a guy really seriously for a few years.  We were planning on getting married and then he broke up with me...that was really hard."  "Been there," I said and thought I might tell her about E.  But before I could speak she continued.  "Then last July he was in a car accident and died."  I felt the punch in my gut for her.
I hadn't been there.  I started to sense the level of suffering she had experienced and the difficulty of understanding the circumstances and the pain the Lord had allowed her to go through. "It was like I had to go through everything all over again," she said.
"C. I do not believe that God plans out hardship for us, or causes bad things to happen to us to make us suffer in order to prepare us."  She nodded.  "But I do believe that He allows us to suffer and that it changes us and does work in us that otherwise would not be done. I sense that God is preparing you for something."  She nodded again and we both felt the weight of His presence affirming her calling. 
She began to explain, "It was just this last year that I realized God was asking me to be a missionary.  I guess I should have put it together earlier, but it wasn't until recently that it became clear."
She continued, "Then this year I took a counseling course and my teacher said that I am very gifted and need to become a crisis counselor."
It was at that moment I knew God had directed this conversation toward what I was to talk to her about next.  I told her very briefly about some of my journey.  "When the pain is so bad that you ask God to take you, that you would rather die than live, and when it lasts over a period of years and you survive that--it changes you."  The tears started their trail down her face.  I paused because the pressure on my spirit to speak was so great.  "C. I feel very strongly right now that I am supposed to speak to you about something," I said.  She nodded and I continued.
"When I first started feeling like the Lord was asking me to minister to very wounded people, I had a very strong sense that I was to create an Oasis.  A place of healing, a safe place for recovery, a sanctuary.  One day, when Rev. Mary was praying over me, she told me that though the Oasis may be an actual physical place at some point, the Lord wanted me to understand the Oasis was in me.  People would come to me for His healing.  I took that word to the Lord, but I already knew when she spoke it that it was true.  When you go through the kind of pain you have gone through in faithfulness to God, and He brings you through it, there is a sanctuary, a place of healing that He creates inside of you.  There is a spiritual power in it and you will be able offer it to others for their healing." 
"Think of it like this," I continued.  "Think of Jesus dying and going to hell.  He conquered hell, and rose from the dead to new life.  He gives us the power of the resurrection through His resurrection." 
"C., He never asks us to suffer the cross without the resurrection in view," I said.  "He will always work to bring purpose and meaning to our suffering--it is the promise of redemption."
She was taking every word in as if it were a life-saving antidote.  "I'm not saying the Lord won't lead you to get formal training of some sort.  Maybe He will."  Then I spoke with the certainty that only comes from above, "But there is a place of healing that is in you now, and you can give that to others.  You have been through hell, and you are coming out of it.  You know the way now and you can help others find it." 
We were both crying at this point and very aware of the sweet presence of the Spirit of God around us. We were interrupted by a call to join the cake cutting. 
"Thank you," C. whispered as we made our way back inside.
I smiled. "I knew there was a reason I was supposed to come to work tonight," I spoke and turned my spirit with gratefulness to the God who helps us to stay in the midst of troublesome situations and blesses us by using us to do His work.
I knew that God had used the Oasis in me to bring healing and hope to her.  I had been able to give her a glimpse of the redemption she was heading toward. 

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"

made his light shine in our hearts

 to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay

to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;

perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned;

struck down, but not destroyed.

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus,

so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake,

so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body.

So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

II Cor. 4:6-12