Expectantly I climbed the steps of the fine house and knocked on the door. When I had been here the previous Saturday, I had witnessed a new birth. Today I was expecting to see the unfolding of a new life.

I knocked. Margaret was probably busy or napping. I knocked again. I tried the knob and opened the door.

There was the sofa where Margaret and I had knelt, hand in hand. I could still feel the firm grip of the thin, wrinkled hand in mine while we had prayed. Her warm grasp had told me she was with me. Even though her lips could not form intelligible words, her handclasp could assure me that she was reaching out to me, even as I was reaching out to her. And even as we both were reaching out to God.

I opened the unlocked door and called out, “Margaret.” And again, “Margaret.” I walked through the house, “Margaret! Margaret!”

Then, from down the hall I heard a voice. A woman who could have been Margaret 25 years ago came forward.

“I'm Margaret, too. My mother died two days ago, in her sleep.” She reported it as a matter of fact. “It was quite a shock,” she added.

It had been only four weeks ago that I had met Margaret. I was driving up an icy hill when I saw the frail figure of a woman inching up the hill, her plastic grocery bags a ballast against the wind.

I stopped the car. “Would you like a ride home?” I called out to her.

She slowly turned her hollow eyes to me and began to weep convulsively. She said nothing, but she climbed into the seat beside me with her bags. Silently she fumbled in her purse for a dirty, crumpled, blank check which she handed to me. On it was written:

Margaret Lindsay
151 N. Main Street
Frederick, Maryland

As I drove her home, we tried to communicate. Unsure if she could understand me, I expressed my concern for her and my desire to share the comfort and peace of Christ. The only sound she could make was a gurgle like that of my seven-month-old daughter.

When I left her off, she wrote down her thoughts; but her writing was illegible. “Would you like me to stop back and see you next week?” I asked. Her eyes lit up, and she nodded her head.

She was expecting me next week and welcomed me into a miserable, ill-kept kitchen. Then she hurried me through French doors to an impeccably appointed living room. She motioned me to the couch. With paper and pencil in hand she sat down beside me. Laboriously she made a page of scribbles. I could decipher just one word: PRAY.

As we knelt, she reached for my hand and held it tightly. When we finished, the troubled face had softened into a smile. Each weekly visit was crowned for Margaret by our time of prayer together by the couch.

From her daughter and three renters, I learned a little of Margaret's story. She had had five children. Four of them eventually moved away from the family home, and just Rachel remained. She was single, an airline stewardess. Somehow mother and daughter became estranged. During this separation word came to Margaret that Rachel's plane had crashed. Rachel was one of the casualties.

Rachel's death was a particularly traumatic experience for Margaret, coming as it did during this time of rift in the mother-daughter relationship. Feelings of guilt were built up within the distraught woman. These feelings became more and more oppressive. My sources assumed that it was these feelings which produced the emotional and nervous dysfunctions, with symptoms resembling those of a stroke.

At the time of Rachel's death, light had gone out of Margaret's life – light and order and cleanliness. Six years ago the whole house had been well kept, and light had streamed in through the shining windows. Now only the living room gave evidence of the past state of normalcy in Margaret's life and home, waiting, perhaps, for Rachel's return.

That first day when we met on the icy hill, the light of the world had begun to appear – or reappear? – in her life. Those days we had prayed together the light had penetrated more and more deeply into her soul.

One Sunday I took her to our little church. Incredible warmth and tenderness were showered upon her by a family of believers who already had been praying for her.

Then came the Saturday visit when she brought out a picture of Rachel. Sobs wracked her body, almost convulsively. I could read in her grief overwhelming feelings of guilt.

We prayed. “Help me to minister to Margaret, Father,” I pleaded for myself. “Help Margaret to know and rest in the forgiveness of Christ. Give her your peace,” I asked for her.

I could not understand the prayer Margaret prayed. But God understood it as a plea for forgiveness and peace. And the Giver of forgiveness and peace answered her prayer. She arose from her knees. She squeezed my hands. And a most beautiful smile enlightened her face.

That was Saturday. Thursday morning she was dead.

Back in the car, I looked at my engagement book. Was shock distorting my memory? Was it barely a month since the icy day I saw Margaret climbing the hill?

My finger traced down the weeks: January 7 – met Margaret; January 14 – visit Margaret; January 21 – visit Margaret; January 22 – take Margaret to church; January 28 – visit Margaret; February 4 – visit Margaret.

I got out my pen. Under February 9 I wrote very slowly, “Margaret went home.”