I got a call last night from a woman I met recently. She was immediately impressed when we met that it was a divine appointment, standing in a store aisle. I just thought she was lonely and needed a friend, having moved to our communityd recently and having had to divorce a physically abusive second-marriage spouse of three years. She is a little older than me, a nurse and psychologist.I had invited her to my home a few days later along with 9 other single women who come to my home regularly.
She was in emotional distress last night over her brother’s recent suicide. She said she was in a hynogogic state, hearing his voice, and her brother told her he didn’t suicide. She jumped to a fearful conclusion wondering if her estranged sister in law had killed him. It had not occurred to her before but seemed possible after hearing his voice say he didn’t suicide.
This woman said that her brother’s daughter had called her yesterday and told her about plans to have a gathering to spread his ashes in some California mountains where he liked to hike. This woman said that her deceased brother told her not to go to that family event.
She had called me to find out if we had a mental health hotline because she needed to talk. I became her mental health hotline. From 12:40 am until 3:11 am.
We covered a lot of territory.. Her father’s death when they were 7 and 11. Raised Catholic, the trauma of her father’s open coffin in the home before the funeral and no one ministering to their grief as children…she had spent time in therapy during nursing school years.
I talked to her about my experience of hearing God speak to me and my psychosis in 1997 and what I learned about cognitive dissociation and our need to resolve apparent contradictory facts through the years with women in emotional crisis.
I also talked to her about God, despair, psychological death crises, dark night of the soul, etc. She affirms spirituality and higher power but is not religious or biblically knowledgeable.
Eventually we’re were laughing and talking about her own current physical well being, a recent date she’d had with a doctor, etc. Finally she felt ready to sleep. I prayed with her and we said goodbye.
Clearly, this is now someone assigned to me…..just when one gets resolved and is moving out of my orbit, here comes another one……distressed, needing spiritual guidance….spiritually unequipped for what they face in life.
I knew when we said goodbye at 311 am it was a sign. 311 is a telephone call line in many cities in the US and Canada for non-emergency, but urgent need questions manned by professionals trained to assist. It’s a step down from 911, which requires immediate first responder action on site to address an emergency.
311, in the shorthand God has given me, means Holy Spirit (3) connecting two persons (1 1) for a God-ordained purpose.
I know my work in spiritual counseling is undercover, subterranean, in dark places and near to demonic realms. No one would believe the things God shows and teaches me.