I’m not usually someone who is nervous to talk to strangers. Yet, for some crazy reason, I was afraid to approach a small, elderly woman sitting in a food court at our local mall in London, Ontario. I kept walking around her, telling my best friend beside me how I should probably grow a pair and approach her, but my fear kept holding me back. My heart kept pulling me back towards her, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave that day if I didn’t talk to her. Finally, my best friend gave me the push I needed, and I proceeded towards her on my own.

It made me more comfortable to see that she was simply working on a crossword puzzle in a newspaper, so I wouldn’t be disturbing too much of her day (hopefully). I stood before her and said:

“Hi miss, I’m sorry to bother you.” She glared up at me without saying a word… NOW I was terrified and all the comfort I had when I saw her crossword was officially swept clean from my mind.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.

She didn’t open her mouth. She just kept glaring at me with a hateful look. Something in me kept going:

“I was wondering if I could pray for you in any way today… Or anything I can give thanks for in your life.”

With the rolling of her eyes in annoyance, she finally replied saying:

“Well I guess I’m happy that I figured out the cockroach problem in my house. They were buggin’ the heck outta me and I was really, really losing my patience with those things. But they’re finally gone and I can get back to my clean house.”

…I honestly had no idea how to respond to that. So I said:

“Oh! Praise God! That’s great we can give thanks for that!” At this point, I hadn’t sat down at her table in the food court. I was still very apprehensive about the negative vibe I was receiving from her. Probably something to do with the fact that I had disturbed her regular-Saturday-peace-crossword-puzzle-time. I said:

“Anything else?”

And she spoke for the next 8 minutes straight all on her own.

My heart broke as I learned that, according to her, her entire family despised her and would never forgive her for her illness. This woman spoke with so much hatred and resentment in her voice about a family that never wants to see her, and in fact make conscious efforts to turn the whole family against this small, frail woman.

One of the first problems breaking her apart was her illness. She said that people are scared of her and will never take the time to try to understand her because they’re just ‘too scared’. She hadn’t yet told me the name of her illness, but she definitely described it as a mental illness that detained her from living a full life that she was originally made for. She is aware of her own mental illness, and she was angry at the world for giving it to her. She couldn’t even remember what her mental illness was, but she knew she was being drowned by the power of it.

This woman admitted to feeling invisible. She said (so easily) that people bump into her and her walker every day in stores, on buses, on sidewalks, etc. She truly feels that people don’t see her, so she would rather just die…

She then continued with saying how she has spent years of her life being suicidal but never being able to do it because she’s more scared of Hell than the few years she has left here on Earth. This woman must’ve been around 80 years old, and she’s admitting that she has spent the majority of her life wondering about ‘ways to disappear permanently‘. At that moment, my heart was crushed with the idea that she has spent longer than my lifetime in a state of suicidal depression. How can we reach out to people who are going through this? Empathy? Sympathy? No, that’s even worse…

She explained how her entire family had turned against her: Nieces, granddaughters, her mother, siblings, even her own son. This woman was a mother with a family that couldn’t even look at her anymore because they didn’t want to take the time to understand her mental illness. She explained that her own mother is the one who turned her son against her. As if it were obvious, she made it clear that she also hated them all. ALL OF THEM. Then she said the most terrifying thing:

“You look and remind me exactly of my granddaughter. Smile and eyes and everything.” She grumbled this and I thought to myself ‘She just finished explaining how she hates everyone in her family.’ So I did NOT feel good about this comment at all. I didn’t want to remind her of someone she hated! I smiled in embarrassment and said:

“I’m so sorry! I don’t know what to say, I’m sorry!”

She replied for the first time with a confident, yet sneaky smile:

“I didn’t say smiling was a bad thing…”

That mysterious smile told me she was finally opening up and she was going to allow me into a deeper conversation with her. But her smokey eyes told me her pain was fogging her way to joy…

We spoke for the next 40 minutes –at least– about the details of her family, her illness, one of her friends recently passing away, a friend who reminded her that suicide isn’t the answer and her ‘invisibility’. Mind you, she still hadn’t asked me to sit at her table in this food court. I was STILL standing. Then for another half hour, words of encouragement started pouring out of my mouth, made only possible by God. I’m not personally one to say the three words “I love you” a lot because those are the most over-used words in the english language. But that day, at that specific time, the following words rolled off my tongue so smoothly I could tell they weren’t my own:

“You’re not invisible; I see you and I love you.”

GOD. Only the Lord could have provided words like that for her at that moment.

The next 20 minutes consisted of both of us with our heads bowed praying to God, something she hadn’t done since she was a young girl. Before praying, she finally allowed me to sit in front of her at this table in the food court. I prayed and prayed and prayed over her life, her heart, her spirit and her soul. I felt so much love for this woman whose name I didn’t know, and my prayer for her was like none other I had ever prayed in my life. I believe God used my mouth at that time to profess to her how much He loves her and how He sees her and that He would never leave her nor forsake her (Hebrews 13:5). 

After saying “Amen”, I looked up at her and she was shaking fervently, with tears travelling down the sides of her face. In that moment I saw her through the eyes of God and she looked like the most beautiful child I had ever laid eyes on…

She told me her name was Nancy, and that God reminded her that Nancy means Hope. 

Hope!

She kept crying and wiping away her tears as she told me that she was remembering who she was, that the illness she has is Alzheimer’s (which explains why she couldn’t even remember the name of her illness), and that she was starting to feel hope again for the first time in a long time… She said she believed in God and His love for her.

I helped her up from the table because she was feeling thirsty, but we both knew she was also thirsting for the Spirit of the Living Water (Isaiah 55:1, John 7:37).

Her life was changed… She remembered who she was.

She is Loved. She is Chosen. She is Seen. She is a Warrior. She is Hope.

 

 

She is Nancy.