Tell What He’s Done for You

Learning to Walk in Divine Trust

I want to share how the Lord has taught me about trusting Him with our bodies. The subject was really confusing to me as a child. I was taught that God was the One that we should pray to when we were sick, and that we didn’t take medicines. But I developed the impression that when we were seriously in trouble, we would go to the hospital. I know that my parents didn’t intend it that way, but that’s what I thought. For instance, when I was seven or eight I split my knee open and we went to the hospital to get stitches. The situations that they prayed about didn’t seem so impressive, and so I don’t remember them. But even though I grew up without much faith in God, I did love the Lord.

When I began doing foster care, the State required that I take the children in for regular medical treatment. It seemed to me that the medical treatment didn’t work very well. A child came to my home with really severe ear infections, and the ear treatments perscribed for her didn’t work. So I swapped over to what my mom had done for nursing care. I used a hot onion, and that worked really well with her. I wanted to trust the Lord for myself, but since these were not my children, I wasn’t really faced with the issue of trusting God for them. It became a real big struggle in my heart, however, when I went through the process of adopting one of these children as my daughter. I knew that I had to face the issue of divine trust concerning my care of her, but it all seemed inconsistent to me. Some of the scriptures on the subject just didn’t make sense to me, and I didn’t really know why our family and congregation did what we did.

A few months after I was married, I got very sick. At the time, I was in probably the best health I’ve ever been—I was eating very healthfully, losing weight, and exercising regularly. In fact, my daughter and I had just finished a four-mile walk up and down the steep hillside we lived on. I came in feeling great, but that all changed within ten minutes. I started vomiting horribly, and in the following week, my health deteriorated to where I couldn’t even turn over on one side.

The Lord talked to me a lot about trusting in Him at that time. I knew that, as an adult, I had complete liberty whether or not to go to the hospital. We were having a lot of pressure from my husband’s dad, but it really didn’t weigh a lot on me—it was much more the question of where my faith was. There weren’t any simple remedies that I could take, and I couldn’t keep anything down, anyway. But in my praying I realized that really wasn’t what I wanted to do—I wanted to hold on to God. I wanted what He had.

I don’t remember all the details now. For a few days I couldn’t sleep because of so much intense pain. Toward the last, my family was praying almost every hour, just for relief from pain so that I could get a few minutes of rest or sleep. During that time two sisters came to help me. I was beginning to get dehydrated, so they tried to find some suppliments to help me keep food down. But I knew in my heart that this wasn’t what the Lord wanted me to do. With all the questioning of things in my growing up, I couldn’t pin it down and tell you why it was right or wrong to take those things—it just wasn’t the thing to do. The Lord made that very clear to me.

The trial went on for six days, and I was so ill that my parents thought that I might be going into a coma, because I was fading in and out. I remember that last evening when I prayed, “Lord, You know exactly what’s wrong inside”—it felt like there were bones being crunched and things breaking—“Would You put me back together? You know exactly what’s wrong with me.” I was at a point of total trust. I didn’t want to figure it out. The intense pain had lasted so long that I just wanted to give it all to God. And He helped me drift off to sleep.

The next morning when I woke up, everything was different. I was well. I’ll never forget the wonderful feeling of just hopping out of bed. Before that, I couldn’t even turn over. I must have had some very intense internal bleeding, because I hadn’t been able to bear for anyone to even lay fingers on my abdomen. I haven’t experienced anything close to how horrible that was, since that experience.

A couple of weeks later I had a heart attack. That was intense as well, but short. My husband came home from work in the middle of the night, and everything had been just fine, when I suddenly felt this huge, crushing weight on my chest. I was sweating profusely and felt like I was being crushed. My husband called our pastor’s family for prayer, and the Lord gave relief and healing to the point where I could start singing within a very short amount of time. Before God touched me I could not speak at all. I felt like I was dying. I literally felt like I was just slipping away. And I was so grateful that no one was rushing me to the hospital. I was not trying to do anything or change the circumstances. I had the knowledge that I was in the center of God’s will at that moment—and that is what made the difference.

To this day I really can’t explain it clearly when people ask me, “What is divine healing?” or “What if this situation or that situation comes up?” But I have put my trust in the Lord—He knows what to do, He knows how to handle it. And I know I don’t want to do anything to hinder that.

One time when I was sick with asthma issues, I called for prayer, and when prayer had been given, the asthma symptoms were unchanged but I was filled with grace to bear the trial. God’s ways are always best. Even if we can’t understand them at the time. I spent a lot of time in my adolescence trying to figure it out, often trusting in going to the coast (for the pollen-free air) when I had allergies. I find the Lord does give us liberty to do things, but He wants us to put our trust in Him alone.

Last fall I was very sick with asthma again, after a summer dealing with a lot of asthma and allergies. The Lord had not directed me to do anything particularly about the attacks until this time. Then He brought strongly to my mind that I could put hot onions on my chest to help relieve my breathing. It was a blessing—there’s no other way for me to describe it. I did not think, “Wow, why haven’t I been doing this all the time?” I just realize that the Lord blessed it at that specific time. It didn’t cure my asthma, either—it gave me relief and encouraged me. It was such a blessing to be right in the center of God’s will and hearing His voice directing, instead of trying to figure out, “Is this going to work?” or, “Is it okay for this to work?”

In giving my afflictions over to the Lord, and not trying to figure it out in terms of what is a “medicine” (that is, trusting in man) or what is a “natural remedy” (that is, co-operating with the Lord in nursing care), it’s not always going to make sense to others what I do. But I just want to trust the Lord completely and give it over to Him. I find that this trust must include the health of my family and children as well. There is great peace in just trusting God and giving Him the perplexing details of each situation. There’s nothing like that!

Saved from Suicide

I was born in a Hindu family. My father, mother, brother, and I used to worship idols. But God, by His great grace and according to His eternal plan, has brought us to this faith. Now all four of us are living for Jesus.

When I was studying in 1st standard, my father was working in a bank. He started a business which became a loss, and so he became a debtor. The debt was very great and we were unable to repay it. The creditor’s demands were so urgent that my father thought of committing suicide with the whole family.

At that time one of my uncles, who was converted to be a Christian, came to know about it. He spoke to us, telling us not to make such plans. He said that we have only one hope, that is Jesus, and the only way is to go to Him and He will solve our problems. Before that my father had been opposing the Christians. But our uncle said to give Jesus a chance to work in our life, and my parents decided to go to church and see what would happen.

And God started to work slowly in our lives. My parents came to know that Jesus is the true God. They had been very pious as Hindus, but now they began to worship the true God and left all the filthy worldly things. God helped them to know that He had given this problem of debt to save our souls. Then they yielded themselves to God’s will.

At that time I and my brother were small. After my father lost his job at the bank, my parents left us in our grandpa’s house while they went to a distant place (because of the creditors) and worked there. They both attended the church regularly. They did some poor job and were happy. When they wanted to come and see us, they came and went by night because of the creditors. We were happy to know about Jesus at that time.

After one year, by God’s mercy, my dad got his bank job again and was transferred to another state far away. So he took his family and came here, to Hassan, near Bangalore. And here we have learned this state language and studied. I’m still studying here myself. And slowly He helped us to repay all our debts. Above all, God gave fellowship with true saints here. He is preparing His bride church for His soon coming. In this state there is very little Christianity. I request you to pray for this country.

—a sister from India