The Switch that Saved a Sixteen-Year-Old Girl

Johanna smiled as she walked down the pedestrian street that forms the center of her town. The air felt fresh, and so did her sixteen-year-old heart.

She and two friends had just attended a youth conference and felt God challenge them to start letting their light shine like never before and dare to believe that His power and presence would be released as they did. When they got back home, the girl trio decided to meet once a week to pray for revival, and Johanna was now on her way to their weekly prayer meeting.

She felt the breeze in her long brown hair and how her heart was thrumming with anticipation. Oh man, life was exciting! Not always easy, to be sure—Johanna had already had a few ups and downs—but that inner motivation that had come from getting her heart right with God at the conference, making some new life decisions, and now doing her very best to back them up…it felt good, inspiring.

Prayers bubbled up inside her as she made her way through the shopping crowds in the street. The excitement made her heart almost burst as she stopped, closed her eyes, and whispered, “God, use me now!”

Then, she opened her eyes slowly and looked around, hoping God would answer her prayer and somehow use her at that very moment, though she had no idea how or what she expected to happen.

But immediately, she saw something unusual—a girl her age, coming toward her in the crowd. Johanna had never seen her before, but the girl stood out. She was crying. And talking to someone on her phone. As I’ve said many times, showing emotion in public really makes you stand out in Sweden. People mind their own business and definitely avoid outbursts of emotion.

Johanna was now trying to process what she saw. For some reason, this girl was crying and coming her way, about to pass by her in just seconds. Everything Swedish inside of Johanna panicked and cried out, “Don’t intervene! Don’t get involved! Look the other way!” But her newly refreshed and renewed heart whispered, “It’s time to shine your light.”

So, Johanna did the only thing she could think of. Looking at the girl, she threw both her arms out wide like an invitation to a massive hug. Part of her felt awkward, scared, and embarrassed, but her insides smiled and so did her face. The crying girl saw her, stopped for half a second, and then walked right into the embrace of Johanna’s open arms.

Two complete strangers were now standing there hugging and holding one another. One was sobbing; the other one wondered what in the world she would do now. What was the next step after hugging a stranger on a pedestrian street in Sweden?

Johanna prayed silently, seeking the Lord’s advice, then whispered into the ear of the crying girl: “Would you like to come along to meet my friends?” The girl was crying so hard she could not even speak, but Johanna felt her head nodding against her shoulder, and the two girls started slowly walking together.

At her friend’s house, Johanna quickly updated the other two on what had happened and said this could not possibly be a coincidence. The girl had appeared the second Johanna asked to be used by God, so there had to be a special meaning to it.

The three girls held the fourth one and prayed for her, told her whatever was wrong Jesus could help her through, and shared the gospel with her. The girl did not say much about herself or the reason she was crying. Instead, she listened carefully until about a half hour later she said she had to leave. She and Johanna exchanged email addresses and promised to stay in touch.

One week later, Johanna received a long email from the girl, sharing for the first time the full story of what had actually happened that day. How she was really on her way home to lock herself in her room and commit suicide.

Though she was only sixteen years old, she had come to a place where life did not make sense anymore and just hurt too much for her to move on and keep trying. Parents, friends, and boyfriends had all failed her to the point where she felt she could not take anymore. She might as well end it.

Piece by piece, a plan had unfolded in her mind about how she would pick a certain date as her last day ever. That morning inside her room she would prepare everything needed to end her own life, then go to school as on any other day. She would stay in the shadows the way she always did, anonymous and quiet, and nobody but her would have a clue that these were her last few hours on earth. When the school day was over, she would walk her regular route back home through the town center, and right before she came to the door of her house, she would make a final phone call to her aunt, the only one who had ever shown her love and care. She would tell her thank you and goodbye, but she had made careful calculations that even if her aunt tried to come stop her or call someone else to do so, it would already be too late. She would already be gone forever.

When Johanna had opened her eyes on that pedestrian street, this girl had been in the middle of that final call to her aunt, and with only minutes left to live, she was crying as she told her goodbye forever.

“But then,” the girl wrote in the email, “I looked up. And I saw you.”

She did not see Jesus. Nor Billy Graham. Nor a full-time pastor or an evangelist with a global ministry.

She saw a regular girl, part of her own time and generation, who had made herself available to be a light in the hands of God and to shine this light brightly by giving God an initiative He could bless and use. This unknown girl had made herself available to throw her arms out wide, proclaiming “Let there be light!” into a darkness she was not even aware of.

“And I didn’t know why, Johanna, but I walked straight into those open arms of yours,” the girl wrote. “And then you hugged me and held me. And when you did, I felt the first tiny glimpse of hope that I had experienced in years. That maybe I belong. Maybe there is love and purpose after all.”

She kept writing about how she had realized this could not be a coincidence, how this Jesus she was told about must love her so much He placed Johanna right in front of her with arms wide open as if love had blocked the way to her planned suicide. She ended the email by writing: “I think I need to get to know this Jesus.”

Johanna got to lead her to faith in Christ, and the life of the girl was saved twice. Once physically, once eternally.

To learn more about Lundqvist’s latest book, Shine Your Light, visit MyCharismaShop.com