The world was a terrifying place for nine-year-old Beth Praed. She was afraid of everything. Worms, spiders, even little roly-poly bugs. Thunderstorms. A car driving slowly by her house in Indianapolis. You name it.
The dark scared her the most. She wouldn’t go to bed unless her mother first checked the room, turning on the light in her closet and the one on her nightstand.
Her mother would tuck her in and kiss her goodnight, then switch off the light by the bed.
“Leave the closet light on,” Beth pleaded.
“Yes, dear,” her mother said, and left the closet door open, just a crack.
“A little bit more, Mom, a little bit more,” Beth begged. Her hands trembled.
“Honey, you don’t need to worry,” her mother would tell her. “Jesus is always there, watching over us.”
Beth wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. To her it was one more unknown.
It wasn’t that she didn’t have fun. She and her two brothers would play tag and ride their bikes with the other kids in the neighborhood. But even then there was a part of her that was anxious, afraid something awful would happen.
For Beth’s tenth birthday her mother invited all the neighborhood children to her party. It was a wonderful day, but that evening Beth began gasping for air. Her body felt like it was on fire. Her mother gave her a sponge bath with cool water, but the fever wouldn’t break. Beth drifted in and out of consciousness. Her parents rushed her to the hospital.
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The doctors were baffled. They ran test after test, but couldn’t determine a cause for her rapidly deteriorating condition. A week went by. Beth, her skin ghostly white, weak, barely conscious, drew closer to death.
“There’s nothing more we can do,” a doctor told her parents. Their neighbors, friends at church, the kids at school, were all praying for her. Her class sent handmade cards. But there was no improvement.
One night, Beth was alone in her room. Deep in her being, she’d always believed something bad awaited her. Now she just wanted it all to be over.
I’m ready to die now, she prayed. Please take me. Her eyelids grew heavy. She could feel herself slipping away…. A sharp, stabbing pain ripped through her chest. Before she could scream, the pain was gone. A soft golden aura filled the room. She could breathe again. Easily. Effortlessly.
Slowly her room faded around her. In the distance she saw a bright light, a pinprick that grew larger as it came closer. Her eyes fixed on it and she realized it wasn’t a light at all, but a man, walking—no, floating—toward her.
He wore a brown robe and had brown hair and a beard. His eyes met hers and seemed to envelop her with warmth, a comfort she’d never known.
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Are you ready to die? he asked. His lips never moved, but Beth heard him clearly.
No, she thought. I’m just a little girl. The man nodded and smiled, as if he knew Beth better than she knew herself. The question reverberated in her mind. Then, suddenly, as if she were watching a movie, she saw a woman with a son and two daughters. She saw her teaching music. Scenes of joy. And also sadness.
She saw the woman struggling to walk, her face contorted in pain. She didn’t understand everything she saw, but she knew it was a glimpse into time.
The man looked at her again, as if to ask, Do you want to live?
She took a deep breath. Yes, she said. I want to live.
The man turned and left, just as he had arrived, until only the pinprick of light was left, in the corner of her room. Beth looked down. Amazingly, she was standing in the middle of her bed. She tried to remember everything the man had shown her, but she could recall only the faintest of details.
A week later she left the hospital, the doctors astounded by her recovery from what they were now calling a severe case of pneumonia. Back home, that first night, her mother tucked her into bed and walked over to the closet to turn on the light.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Beth said. “I don’t need it.”
It was months before she fully regained her strength. And not just physically. That summer Beth thought a lot about the man who had visited her and the questions he’d asked.
One day she told her mom about it. “I know who the man was,” Beth said. “It was Jesus. He was there. Watching over me. Just like you said.”
Beth’s mother hugged her. Something had definitely happened to her daughter in the hospital. She was sure of that. Beth wasn’t anxious anymore. She was practically fearless.
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As the years went by, every detail the robed man showed Beth came true. She grew up, got married, raised a son and two daughters, began a long career teaching music. There was always this feeling that she was journeying down a path she had seen before.
It was so incredibly reassuring, the security of knowing she wasn’t alone. She was sure there would be difficult times ahead, a terrible trauma, but she wasn’t afraid. Every day—her entire life—felt like a gift.
Then it happened. In 1995, at the age of 34, Beth began having difficulty seeing out of her right eye. Her legs and arms often felt numb. She had seizures. Some days, she could barely get out of bed.
Doctors eventually diagnosed her symptoms as multiple sclerosis. An inflammatory disorder of the brain and spinal cord for which there is no known cure. It wasn’t a death sentence, but she could lose 10 to 15 years off her life. The attacks would get progressively worse with time. By the end, she’d lose the ability to walk.
A devastating outlook for anyone. Yet not for Beth. She yelled at God, plenty of times. But she remembered the vision she’d had at 10 years old, the man she’d seen and the words he’d said. They were as real as they’d been back then. She remained determined to live life to the fullest.
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Today, though she uses a walker for long periods on her feet, Beth’s MS has stabilized. For how long, she doesn’t know. But she’s far too busy to worry about that.
She’s gone back to school at Western Michigan University to pursue a master’s degree in counseling psychology. She dreams of being a comfort to the dying. After all, she knows their fears and believes she knows the light that awaits them.
