Behold I Tell You a Mistery

This is the third and final part of a series about James and Wanda. If you read the first two parts, please bear with me as I update those who haven’t. (part one) James’ testimony of spiritual conversion is one of the most unique I’ve heard. In his younger days James was a heavy drinker. He admitted, “Me and my wife’s uncle always went to the Riverside Bar and Grill, in Columbus, after work…There was a large moose’s head mounted on the wall behind the bar. One night, after about ten doubles, I looked up at the moose’s head and its eyes looked like they were glaring back and forth at me. Then I heard the moose say, ‘This is your night. You better change your ways. It’s your last chance.’ It scared me to death so I called a taxi to take me home…I just wasn’t smart enough back then to know that it wasn’t the moose that was talking to me, but the Holy Spirit.” From that day forward, James never looked back and immersed himself in serving God and others.

In part two; we read how James understood the importance and power of confession, of having a clean slate before God. He explained, “If something is bothering me I pray about it. Some men’s’ sins go before them and some men’s sins follow them, those are the ones that show up later. The ones that go before you are the ones that are forgiven. I want my sins to go before me.”

Now for part three. Well, James died of colon cancer on Monday, February 9th, 2004. I visited his wife Wanda in the hospice room shortly after James’ death. Wanda told me, “Sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m. I was taking a nap beside Jimmy’s bed. I woke up very cold and afraid. I saw a very bright light and then I saw two people taking Jimmy out of the room. I couldn’t see their faces, just their shapes. I asked Jimmy’s brother, Donnie, and his sister, Margaret, who it was that, took Jimmy from the room. They told me, ‘Look! He’s right there in bed.’ About 5:45 a.m. Jimmy passed away. I believe he was already gone.”

Now this is where the story gets really mysterious. Jim’s niece, Sandy, who lives over a hundred miles away, had a similar vision around the same time as Wanda’s. Sandy shared her experience with me in a letter some time after James’ death: “Right before Jim was diagnosed with cancer I started having visions…I thought that I could see two people standing with outreached arms…they were trying to tell me something about Jim…they were Jim’s mother and his aunt….On Saturday, February 7th (Two days before James’ death), as I sat at the table working on a paper for graduate school, I saw the vision again…I knew if I wanted to see Jim alive, I had to go immediately. I left early Sunday morning and went to see Jim for the last time….Monday morning, between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m. (The morning of James’ death), I had another vision….It was as if I was looking down on Jim’s hospital room. I saw him in bed and other people in the room with him; and then I saw a ball of light swoop down across his bed and linger in the corner of the room. It became brighter and left the room. I knew Jim was either gone or would be soon.”

James’ thirty-year-old nephew also told Wanda that he was awakened at home around 5:30 a.m. (The morning of James’ death) by Jim singing the song he used to sing to him when he was a small child. He told Wanda that his mother found him sitting on the side of his bed crying. When he told his mother that he thought Jim had died, she responded, ‘You don’t know’. Twenty minutes later they received a call informing them of James’ death.

So what do you make out of this; three people seeing similar visions simultaneously hundreds of miles apart? You could try to discredit their character, dismiss them as “kooks”. But if you questioned Wanda’s character I would be the first one to stand up and defend her. She is intelligent, compassionate, honest and sincere.

More importantly, how should we conduct ourselves, live our lives, in the light of truth, in the light of eternity, in the light of who God is and who we are? Think about it, for it is a question of eternal significance.

“Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed…death is swallowed up in victory…thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:51-58)