We watched from a window as an unfamiliar vehicle pulled up our driveway. Then there came a faint knock at the back door. “Come in!” I hollered, from a choice center of repose. “Come in!” I yelled from my favorite couch – from just off the kitchen. Soon a perfect stranger was standing in our doorway. He whispered, “Don’t you know me?”
Although his face was totally unfamiliar, he insisted he knew me, and rather well at that. But I noticed when the older gentleman cautioned our rug, that he could hardly raise his voice at all. Suddenly I was saddened by a speech impediment. I struggled deeply to recognize him. Deeper still, I wanted to know him. Then the stranger, as troubled as he was, again turned to my wife and whispered: “He doesn’t know me.”
Now we were all three affected by such an uncomfortable greeting. Yet I studied his face and adjusted to some more of his whispers. As I focused on the subtle nuances of his voice and manner, I noted how much we may actually “know” a person, not only by one’s face, but by their voice as well. Presently, I remembered him from meager accounts with mutual friends, some of them from fifty years ago…
Someone has said: “We may know some things that we haven’t remembered yet”. But I still could neither recognize nor identify this man without his voice. This started an hour-long conversation which revealed that he had experienced Cardiac Arrest a year or two earlier. We discussed how he was saved by the Providence of God, his Grand-daughter’s actions as a nurse, and her CPR training as well. We were all quick to be thankful for friends and family.
After he had gone, we considered his visit, and commented on his calm spirit. Then we looked up terms like ‘Intubation’ and the “Mitral Valve” etc., to better understand various CA heart conditions, – particularly, terms associated with the larynx and vocal chords.
Initially, it was easy to connect the day’s events with John 10:27: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
In further review, I think about the vast greatness and wisdom of our God, to create us in His image, with an ability to speak and hear and commune with not only each other, but with God through Christ, remembering Him who ever lives to intercede for us.