I shook as she slammed her fist into the mattress and ordered me to leave.  I reached for the call button that had fallen on the floor and every time I leaned over to retrieve it, it seemed to get further away.

The room was turning into an icebox.  I knew Sarge or one of the nurses would soon notice the room door tightly closed which was forbidden.

Betty was growing wilder with rage, and my heart was beating way too fast.  I felt faint.

Suddenly I heard a voice deep within my soul.

“Ask her what is wrong?” the voice ordered.

“No!” was my answer.

“You can’t leave, no one will rescue you, ask her!” The demand became louder until I knew that God was standing in the middle of the room with a certainty that there are no words to describe.

I turned to the crazed lady in the bed beside me and asked authoritatively, “Betty, what is your problem? You are scaring me and everyone in here! Do you think your problems are any worse than ours?”

Words were spilling out of me in sequence and with sanity.

She immediately screamed with hatred and disgust, “You have no idea, leave me alone! Just leave!”

After a minute, I continued.

“Well, I would but it seems I can’t. God has the door shut, He has turned the temperature to freeze us, and no one has come for us in hours. I can’t move and the way I understand it, God wants me to bug you till YOU move. This is not about me.  He wants to help you. I personally, don’t care!”

She sat up in the bed. Her clinched fist relaxed and she just stared at me with her mouth agape.

“He is my problem!” she declared as are hands covered her face.

“God is your problem?” I retorted. How could He be your problem?”

Out of her mouth, “I denied God!” She repeated it over and over, tears streaking her face in shame.

“How?” I asked.

When she told me, I started quoting scripture I did not know and explained how she was wrong. She had not denied God.

“Well, the only thing, Betty, is that if you had truly denied God why would He be in here trying to save you? Why?”

After a while I smiled and said, “I think I can get up now. I will leave you alone to talk with God. I am going to see if I can get my breakfast in the room down the hall. Join me if you want.”

My heart was at 72 beats a minute for the first time in 10 days. I noticed the nurses were at their station as the noise of the door opening didn’t faze them.

I saw Sarge in the hall. As she passed she winked at me with a smile.  “How odd.” I thought.

I got to the empty room where breakfast was served about two hours earlier. There were two lone trays on a rack. A little time passed as I began to eat the cold eggs and stale toast.

I heard footsteps coming toward me.

Betty walked into the room, took the other tray, and sat across from me. She reached for my hand. I noticed the healed slash marks on her wrist.  The hate was replaced with a smile as she said, “I am going home soon.”

People ask me often why I have no doubt about my faith. It is because I don’t.

Betty went home before I did. I never knew what happened to her in the 35 years that followed that fateful day when God came into a room to save a soul.

We never know why we are where we are at times, but maybe it is not for our purpose but for another’s.

Maybe today I tell this story not for me, but for someone that needs to hear a story that needs to be told.