Weird Phone Call

I should preface what's about to come with a disclaimer that says: THIS WAS REAL. I got the following email from my friend Chelsea. What are your thoughts? How freaky would this situation be if it had happened to you?

**I know I need to post a good update, but this is something I wanted to share too. It happened Wednesday night.**

Hey guys,

I had a weird phone call tonight that's really shaken me up and I would really appreciate if you could pray for me.
While I was working at Calvary Christian Academy I became really good friends with a core group of people: Melody, Bekah, and Paul. Over the summer Bekah and her husband moved to Chicago and I haven't heard from them since the move. Tonight Pat and I had Ann and Joey over for dinner and I got two phone calls while we were finishing-up dinner. The first call was from Paul but since we were still talking I decided to ignore the call and let it roll to voice mail. But within a minute of that call I got another call from Bekah. These are two people I never/rarely receive phone calls from so my mind immediately went to worse case scenario (someone must be hurt or worse) so I decided to take the call.

Bekah was crying uncontrollably... so hard I couldn't understand her at all. I immediately thought, "oh my gosh, who died?". I kept repeating, "what's going on?" while she cried and kept saying over and over "I'm just so happy." Once she calmed down she was able to explain that she had just received a call from a woman who said she was a teacher at Calvary Christian Academy who wanted to let Bekah know that last night I died in a fatal car accident and to please pray for my husband and family. Bekah was totally distraught and told me that since that phone call she had called both Melody and Paul to share the news and that for the last hour or so they had been mourning my death.

Because Paul had just called I told her that I needed to go so I could make sure that everyone knew the truth. When I called Paul his wife was crying in the background and he just kept repeating "thank God". He apparently had just been on his knees praying that the news wasn't true. They had also been mourning my death and searching the internet for articles that would give them more information about the car accident that I had died in.

I sent a text to everyone else that I thought may have gotten this news and it was really hard to hear what people had gone through. Melody (who is a few months pregnant) said that the shock of this made her concerned that she could have lost the baby.
Guys, this has been so bizarre. It is totally satan. He is the father of lies and for whatever reason he convinced someone (we have no way to trace the phone call so we're not sure who this is) that it would be a good idea to lie to my friend and tell them I had died. It is so sick and so wrong. I just hate it.
There are a few things that I would really like you to pray for:

1) I feel really troubled and shaken up having heard people mourning my death. That's so unnatural. It's not something you should hear because you're in heaven and far far away from all of that. I feel really rocked by being allowed to hear what my funeral would sound like.

2) I really want to figure out who made this call and bring them to account. Please pray that my heart would be forgiving and compassionate towards them while still holding them accountable to their wrong.

3) I do not want any rumors to spread so please pray that God would bring truth to any hearts that may have been hit by this false news.

4) This really screams to me of spiritual warfare. This seems like a direct attack against men and women of God who are really involved in ministry and discipleship. All of the people who were impacted by this phone call are either in full time ministry or teachers or both.

5) Please pray that I wont have nightmares.

6) Pray that Melody's baby would be okay.

7) Pray that peace and truth would guard the hearts of those who heard this news.

8) Pat reminded me that we should pray too that this would be redemptive and that we would rejoice that what man had intended for evil God intended for good.

So weird. It was a blessing to have Ann and Joey here though. They prayed with us which really set my heart in the right place.
That's the story. I really appreciate and covet your prayers right now.

I got to talk to Chelsea last night, and she seemed really calm. The last few weeks have been hard for her, she's going through a lot medically and is a newlywed, so she's having to adjust to marriage right now too. I am so glad she has Pat to support her through this, but I can't imagine what he's thinking.

One question for discussion: if you received a phone call that your friend had died, would you even call their cell phone? I am pretty certain that if I knew the number, I might call the spouse, but it's weird to me that Bekah and Paul both felt like they should call Chelsea to see if she was okay. Aside from that, Chelsea thinks that it might have been a student. They have no way of currently tracking the number, but she is trying to get in contact with the school - if this was a malicious teacher, she needs to be let go. This is a sick/twisted trick to pull on someone.

Anyway, I know it's a heavy topic, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.