About a year after that experience, I had another that convinced me that listening to the subtle stirrings of the still small voice is a matter of life and death—and very vital and real. I was waiting outside the gymnasium at the old Jordan High School. I was a sophomore at the time. As I sat there, a young women that I didn’t know well at all came and sat beside me. Without thinking and without hesitating, I turned to her and said: “I know that this will sound strange, but I have a message for you. God wants you to stop thinking about suicide.” Her eyes became great big and her mouth dropped in stunned surprise. She gasped, “How did you know?” In truth, I was also stunned that I had just said what I did. This young lady was a very pretty senior to whom I don’t remember having spoken previously. If I had thought about it before speaking, I would never have opened my mouth. I would have been completely intimidated. On any other day, I would have been too self-conscious to open my mouth. She explained to me that she had laid out on her bed stand an entire bottle of sleeping pills that she planned to go home to take right after the assembly we were about to attend.
The next morning she ran out of the building to meet me as I approached the school steps. She ran up to me and hugged me, crying. I’ll never forget what she said as she sobbed: “I didn’t know that God cared about me. Thank you.” To this day I’m stunned that somehow I knew God had a message for that marvelous young lady. We became friends after that experience. But the truth is that I don’t know how I knew—I just did.
--Blake T. Ostler, theologian
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