By Divine Appointment

I thought I was going to see my doctor for the follow-up after a skin biopsy. That's what I had in mind... Well, that and asking the doctor if we can start trying to conceive again, since he had done a series of tests to determine my baseline health. I guess you could say that a lot rested on this appointment. However, according to a black woman named Jennifer from Ohio that I met in the waiting room, that was only one of the appointments I was meant to keep today. She says I had an appointment with her as well, only God had arranged this one.

I had arrived at the doctor eager to get the whole business over with. While I am getting quite used to the sort of exam that this office specializes in, I have never gotten used to the indignity of them. I checked in and looked for something to read to pass the time. Thankfully this office has a variety of magazines, unlike the office in Raleigh where I went through the majority of my short pregnancy and post-miscarriage care. That office offered reading choices for two life-events only: happy pregnancy and happy menopause. However, in this office, the smallish magazine that caught my eye was one called Miracle, which happened to be about achieving pregnancy through infertility treatments. I flipped through it, and looked despondently at a chart demonstrating the relationship between rising age and failing fertility. This month I turn 34, and the point at which pregnancy is attended by additional counseling about all the things that can go wrong is one year away. I soon discovered that this particular "miracle" booklet amounted to nothing more than fancy pharmaceutical literature, but it was enough to make me wonder as I put it back on the table if I would be devouring it in a year or two, hoping it held answers we desperately wanted.

My name was called, and, after a routine collection of specimens, I was ushered by a nurse into another waiting room. A tall, neatly groomed black woman sat down across from me. We smiled, and I made a passing remark about how we had made it to the second waiting room, which is always encouraging. She laughed and chatted a little bit. She was here, she said, because she had miscarried a few months ago, but she was now pregnant again. I smiled and congratulated her, and then I told her about my own miscarriage in February. She looked at me and, in dead earnestness, told me that I was going to have a baby. "How can I know this? I don't even know you? All things are in God's hands, and you are going to have a child." She then got up and laid her hand on my shoulder and told me she would be praying for me long after I had forgotten about this day. By then, I had started to cry quietly. "Don't be afraid. You must not be afraid, and never question God's ways. You do believe in Him, don't you?" I said yes. Her name was called, and she disappeared into the back of the office with a final few words of encouragement.

A few minutes later I was called back to the exam room. My eyes were still moist, and the nurse asked if I was okay. I told her I was and that I had just had an unusual - not unpleasant, just unusual - experience with another patient in the waiting room. I had a lot of time to think while I waited, draped in a paper blanket, for the doctor to come check the biopsy site. Most of that time I prayed silently and cried a bit more. It's an emotional day today, and that little impromptu laying on of hands was all it took to help me find my crying place.

The doctor exam was unremarkable, except that he couldn't find the biopsy spot, it had healed so well. He told me we can try to get pregnant, and wrote me a prescription for prenatal vitamins. So far, so good.

As I left, I met the same woman in the back office hall. She said, "Looks like we're on the same schedule," and we walked out together. She told me that there was such a thing as anointing, and that she was passing it on to me. We chatted a bit. She told me I would have news that everything would be fine by Christmas, and that when I got the news, I would remember that there was a black woman named Jennifer in this doctor's office that had encouraged me today. She told me that God had arranged it so that we would be there together and meet. At that point I couldn't help but laugh. A few days ago the doctor's office called and told me they had to reschedule my appointment by about 40 minutes, so I came in later than was my usual preference. I came in when Jennifer did.

I couldn't help but think of another strange encounter in a hospital hallway when my dad was desperately ill in the ICU. We weren't sure (and the doctors weren't convinced) that he was going to live, but a blond woman in the hallway of the ICU told me that my Dad would walk out of the hospital. I remember clinging to her words, hoping that even though the encounter was exceptionally strange, that her words were somehow true. He was wheeled out of the hospital, as are all patients, but Dad recovered after more than one close call and figuratively, if not literally, he did walk away.

The part of me that isn't entirely jaded, that part that isn't completely cynical, that part wants to believe that Jennifer from Ohio was in fact keeping her divine appointment with me. Because while I am still not sure that it's entirely rational to believe anything this gentle stranger said to me, there was a confidence in her words and her eyes that could have persuaded me of almost anything. I've been pretty hopeless lately. It's been easy for me to lose sight of the good things in the midst of all of my worries. If Jennifer persuaded me to have hope again, after a difficult molar pregnancy, job losses, a traumatic move, a skin cancer scare and months of waiting in what has felt like limbo, then perhaps there is something of God's hand in hers on my shoulder. Jennifer could be an angel, she could be a charismatic person with a strong conviction of God's workings, she could be almost anyone or anything. I believe that she is a woman who kept a divine appointment to encourage a stranger. God bless her for that... and, you will forgive me, won't you, if I cling to a hope that she also turns out to be a prophet?