By Ben Hadley
One Saturday afternoon last May, the following experience of God's miraculous grace occurred. A woman walked by the hospitality counter where I was volunteering as a tour guide. After a brief hello, she said that she was not there for a tour but that she was on a personal retreat. She said that she had been an attendee of the Crystal Cathedral many years ago, but due to carbon monoxide poisoning, she had lost about six years of memory. She was back now, trying to become involved more spiritually and attempting to regain the memory of those lost years. I told her that it might be a help to walk through the second and third floor of the Welcoming Center to see the giant photos of this ministry's history.
It was then that she noticed my nametag. "Hadley," she said. "Why does that name sound so familiar to me?" After a bit, she said, "Is there a Lou Hadley here?"
I said, "That was my sister-in-law, married to my brother, Jack. Jack passed away about 10 years ago and Lou followed five years later." She burst into tears and said, "Jack and Lou Hadley. Oh, how much is coming back. I'm all goose bumps. And you know what that means? It means that the Holy Spirit is here with us."
"You are right," I said. "I'm covered with bumps too."
She then continued by telling me how Jack and Lou had helped her during a very hard time in her life raising small children with no father. At that time, Jack and Lou, as volunteers, among the many other things they did at the church, staffed the Tower of Hope lobby on Sunday mornings. This woman, among several others, had young sons who were not really "Sunday school guys." So, Jack took them under his wing and used them as Tower helpers. He showed them how to greet people, how to operate the elevator, where each activity was held, where to run errands, etc. He and Lou took the boys to special events and even took them camping. They came to love Jack and Lou, and Sunday mornings.
So just think! While I was filling in for another tour guide, I wasn't even scheduled to be there, God used my nametag to spark a memory. Now, the memory of the good works of two beautiful saints, now deceased, has been used by God to bring about a wondrous miracle of healing in the life of this future saint. Praise God.
