“Mrs. Agnes is asking for you,” the caller said, “but come quickly. She doesn’t have long.” I was saddened, for Mrs. Agnes Frazier was one of a kind. She had devoted her life to educating young people; and her wit, warmth, and Christian witness had left a mark on many a life. She had tirelessly corresponded with and prayed for missionaries around the globe. She had spearheaded her denomination’s efforts to launch a women’s ministry. She had walked with God, and now He seemed to be dispatching His angels for her.
“You sent for me?” I asked, bending over Mrs. Frazier’s bed.
“Yes, Brother Morgan. I want you to tell me who those men are.”
“What men?”
“Those men at the foot of my bed.”
“There haven’t been any men here,” I said. “Just Sally, who is taking care of you.”
“Brother Morgan, there are men at the foot of my bed,” she insisted, “and they are dressed in white. I don’t know who they are. What do I tell them?”
I pondered her question and decided there were perhaps men in white near her bed. “Tell them,” I said, “that you belong to Jesus.”
Agnes died a few days later, and she left her Bible to me, a well-worn, heavily-marked red one. Thumbing through it, I saw underlined Isaiah 54:5, and recalled another story about Mrs. Frazier. She and her husband Emmett were married over fifty years, and every morning they had sat at the breakfast table and shared morning devotions. On the morning after his death, Agnes sat alone at the breakfast table, face in her hands, praying, “Lord, I don’t think I can sit here any more and have my devotions. My husband is dead.”
She nonetheless bravely opened her Bible, and her day’s reading brought her to this verse: “For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name.”
She smiled, wiped away a tear, and said, “Thank you, Lord.”
Today’s Suggested Reading
Isaiah 54:4–8
For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name. Isaiah 54:5
Intentional Faith 