1 
Whisperings

High on a mountain path, where the air was thin, clean, and invigorating, a woman in her late forties—bundled up with several sweaters, mittens, and hat—walked alone, her heart full of prayer for one whose name she did not know.

As is not unusual for men and women of prayer, both her object and purpose were vague and undefined, yet such did not deter her from the vitality of this day’s supplications. What had prompted her up and out at this early hour, only the Spirit of God knew. She had ceased inquiring into whys, wherefores, times, and seasons years before. She had begun to learn that most elemental yet difficult of life’s needful lessons—to trust.

It had not been an easy lesson.

She had studied in the various classrooms of tragedy, heartbreak, and disappointment. And Romans five had done its work. Suffering had indeed produced perseverance, character, and hope within her. Nor had that hope disappointed, for God had poured out his love into her heart.

As the Comforter had carried out that maturing operation within her, she had come to cherish the healing power of hope, and thanked God for developing within her an expectant heart.

Though her memory bore its share of deep personal scars, her eyes glowed with peace and with the wisdom that came from walking at her Master’s side in that hope, listening to his voice rather than trying to make sense of life’s unanswerables.

She knew her heavenly Father. She knew him to be both sovereign and good, and infinitely so. In that truth she rested, because she knew she could trust him. As she prayed on this morning, therefore, she knew that all would be well.

Last night’s was the first snowfall of the season, a mere dusting of half an inch. Autumn had scarcely begun, but she could feel the change in the air. Colder temperatures would come, and snow would descend upon them by the yard rather than the inch. Yet she always relished in the first fresh fall of every new winter. It never failed to remind her of the gentle, quiet ways in which God often answered her prayers differently than he had Peter’s from the Joppa housetop, not with giant white sheets, but rather with tiny crystalline flecks of joy. How many times, it seemed, did the snow come quietly and at night—like a million silent invisible answers to prayer—to cover the landscape with peace.

And with the powdery whiteness had come again, as so many times before, the sense of preparation for a new opportunity to care in some way for one of God’s dear ones.

When he first began sending people, she had been full of questions. As years had passed, however, and her comrade sisters had joined her, and as people had come and gone, she had learned that when the prompting came, she must simply pray for a quieting of her heart, that the Spirit’s needful whisperings might be heard.

Who was coming and what might be the need were specifics rarely revealed beforehand. She and her sisters must merely be ready, and pray for the human soil into which they would be given opportunity to plant the seeds of their compassion, prayer, and tender ministration.

Twenty minutes ago before coming out, she had given instructions to Sister Agatha to begin getting a room ready.