BY JOHN D. BUTLER, SR.

N AN EARLIER ARTICLE I WROTE FOR THE Adventist Review,¹ I told about picking up a woman I'd met on the street, distraught and disheveled, who'd just been raped. I indicated that the encounter had called to my mind an earlier article in the Adventist Review of January 22, 1998, by Sandra Doran. Doran had related the story of a rape victim who'd told her how she'd "felt comfort in the midst of the horror, a Presence in the midst of her outcries that went unheeded by cars passing on the distant road." It was an idea I had trouble understanding at the time.

In this article I wish to explore the concept of God's presence not as a general given, but as a suprahuman, invisible, nonpalpable persona that appears--usually unbidden, if not indeed unexpectedly--to comfort and sustain us during times of severe personal ordeal.

In Times of Unusual Stress
As a Christian I believe unequivocally in the immanence of God, that no matter where we may go, we cannot escape His presence (see Ps. 139:7-12). But it's obvious to me that there are occasions when, under unusual stress, the presence of divinity is so arresting, so personal, so concentrated, so awesomely influential and inspiring, as to cause the victim to know beyond a shadow of a doubt, invisibility and immateriality notwithstanding, that a member of the Trinity (or another celestial representative) is present--not necessarily to remove the ordeal, but expressly to give courage, strength, and sustaining power to enable us to endure it.

When Christ was in the garden of Gethsemane bearing the weight of the consequences of sin and guilt for the human race, He prayed for removal of the cup that His Father and He had decided before the foundation of the world would be His to drink. Three times He sought human comfort, sympathy, and encouragement from His companions, and three times He was sorely disappointed by His sleeping friends. But Ellen G. White says that in response to His prayers to His Father, "when the mysterious cup trembled in the hand of the sufferer, . . . a light shone forth . . . and the mighty angel who stands in God's presence . . . came to the side of Christ. The angel came not to take the cup from Christ's hand," but "to give power to the divine-human suppliant."² Thus Christ could come forth from the experience, she said, "calm and serene."³

To Give Faith in God and His Sustaining Power.
In my article of April 2000 I alluded to a piece written by Pat Nordman in a brief treatise on 2 Timothy 4:17, in which Paul said, "The Lord stood at my side and gave me strength" (NIV). Nordman had related the experience of her husband and herself in the wake of their son's suicide: "My husband and I heard our oldest son, Chuck, scream and then shoot himself to death. It was 7:10 p.m. on a dark night, physically and spiritually, in December. But I want to share with you something that even to this day I believe is remarkable: the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength! . . . I consider what happened that lightless and desperate night one of the greatest sensations of my life. . . . I actually felt a Presence beside me as the various thoughts raced through my horrified mind. I can't explain it, but I know I felt it."⁴

This brings me to the story of a young woman named Kristen, whom I met not long ago.

Formerly a devout Catholic, Kristen, when I came to know her, was attending the Reaching Hearts International Seventh-day Adventist Mission Church in Spencerville, Maryland, and studying for baptism. Her protracted ordeal, running for a period of three years or more, had begun in June of 2000. After she experienced about six weeks of extreme allergy-like symptoms, a chest X-ray had revealed a large mass in her chest, diagnosed as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Because of the aggressive nature of the disease Kristen began chemotherapy immediately. The doctors believed that with six treatments of chemo she'd be cured. But when, between the fifth and sixth round, the cancer began growing again in her chest, they labeled her condition chemoresistant and sent her to Johns Hopkins for a stem cell transplant.

With a chemoresistant disease dramatic action had to be taken. In January of 2001, after she'd received the transplant (from her own blood), the doctors assured her this would be her cure. A month of radiation followed.

Kristen was feeling great when her six-month checkup came around that June, but the news was not good. There was a recurrence in her kidney, and she was utterly devastated. Her faith that God would heal her had been 100 percent. How could this be? The terror of the unknown returned. How could she continue this fight that now seemed so hopeless?

As she faced radiation to control the growth, she was told she would need another transplant. This time, however, it would have to be a donor transplant. It also had to be a sibling donor and a perfect match. The chances of this happening were slim to none. She clearly needed a miracle, and felt quite depressed hearing this news.

A Bend in the Road
Shortly after this a friend gave her a book entitled A Bend in the Road, in which she read that God allows adversity in our lives so that we may grow spiritually and develop stronger faith in Him.

With this new realization Kristen now knew she could stand and fight again. She would and could do anything for God. Now it was time for her only sibling, an older brother, to have his tissue type tested so she could get the transplant, the only treatment left for her.

The results showed a perfect match. She'd received her miracle and was referred to the National Cancer Institute for the transplant. By this time the cancer had spread to her chest, both kidneys, and her lungs.

In preparation for the transplant, she would receive three rounds of chemo to lower her immune system and allow doctors to introduce her brother's cells into her body.

In this time period before her transplant, scheduled for January of 2002, she'd been sick from the cumulative effects of the chemo and was frightened, weak, tired, and terrified to face death once again with another risky procedure. Many people have had trouble surviving a single transplant. Now she was facing her second.

A Presence in the Room
One November morning her friend came over to console her. She wanted Kristen to know that if she didn't feel like fighting anymore, that was OK--she didn't have to do it. Hearing that was such a relief to her, since everyone else had kept saying she had to be strong and hang in there, without having any understanding of just how difficult that was.

Kristen told me, "I was crying, and my friend, attempting to comfort me, was also weeping. Suddenly I sensed and felt a Presence in the room, a fullness that filled the room. I knew God was there! I could sense His arm around us, and He was weeping too, not from sadness or despair as we were, but from compassion, love, and sympathy because we could not see the big picture as He could--that everything was going to work out for the best. The Presence filled the room like an invisible bubble, and we were lovingly enveloped by it. My friend did not sense the Presence, but I shared my experience with her. The intensity of the experience lasted just a few minutes and left me feeling strengthened, comforted, and at peace." After this experience Kristen was no longer afraid of the approaching transplant or of what the disease could do to her.

Kristen received the transplant in January 2002, and it was a great success, with recovery continuing over the next several months. By June she was feeling fantastic once again and confident as she went for her checkup that this time was it, that God had healed her for sure. But again she saw the look of sadness on her doctor's face, and she knew what he was going to say. The cancer was back--again! Though sorely disappointed, Kristen was not crippled with sadness, as she had been each time before. Because of the Presence--the presence of God, nothing could touch her. Nothing could ever hurt her, not even cancer.

She received additional chemotherapy treatment that July (of 2002). She would come to prayer meeting and church on Sabbaths wearing a baseball cap to cover her head, bald for the fourth time from chemo treatments. But whether or not she was cured of the disease, she said she knew that she'd been spiritually healed.

In August Kristen was given more of her brother's cells, and suffice it to say, in the spring of 2003 Kristen was finally declared cancer-free!

Kristen is one of the most ardent young Christians I have ever met. I'm inspired and spiritually fascinated whenever I talk with her. And I'm reminded of the words of the Negro spiritual: "Talk about a chile that do love Jesus, here is one!"

Here's what I find common to these (and other) accounts of personal experience with the Presence.

1. He comes in times of extreme emotional or physical pain or stress.

2. He comes when we're helpless, totally hopeless, and bereft of will to survive or carry on.

3. He comes unannounced and unexpected, a spiritual, heavenly consoler-sustainer--not to raise from death or effect an immediate or miraculous cure, but to give strength, courage, peace.

4. He comes with a profound sense of "It's going to be all right! It's going to be all right!"

There have been occasions when I've sensed God's presence and felt His peace more than at other times. But I have never experienced the kind of in extremis ordeal that, apparently, is prerequisite for such a dramatic visit of the Presence as occurred in these cases I've mentioned. I do not covet hardship, loss, tragedy, or pain, but I've had the blessing to experience the kind of joy described by Ellen G. White when she wrote:

"There have been times when the blessing of God has been bestowed in answer to prayer, so that when others have come into the room, no sooner did they step over the threshold than they exclaimed, 'The Lord is here!' Not a word had been uttered, but the blessed influence of God's holy presence was sensibly felt. The joy that comes from Jesus Christ was there; and in this sense the Lord had been in the room just as verily as He walked through the streets of Jerusalem, or appeared to the disciples when they were in the upper chamber, and said, 'Peace be unto you.'"⁵

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¹ John D. Butler, Sr., "The Power That Sustains," Adventist Review, Apr. 13, 2000, p.24.
² Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 693.
³ Ibid, p. 694.
⁴ Cited in Jan Kuzma, Kay Kuzma, and DeWitt Williams, comp., Energized (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald, 1997) p. 140
⁵ White, My Life Today, p. 51.
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John D. Butler, Sr. is a retired university professor and administrator. He writes from his home in Washington, D.C.