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Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
It’s a
great joy to share my testimony with “Snehadeepam” magazine from
a country far away from Kuwait. As much as I am amazed at the
hands of the Lord, I thank God for this opportunity to give
glory to our Father in heaven.
Born in the
United States of America, my mother brought me up to believe in
God and that Jesus was His son and died and rose again. I
stopped going to church as a young teenager and prayed all my
life to a God I did not know. My mother’s death in February,
1999 was devastating to me. Seven months later I was separated
from my husband of 15 years. Living on my own, these events left
me feeling desperate and alone. Seven months after that, I felt
compelled to go to church on April 23, 2000 on Resurrection
Sunday (Easter). At the pastor’s invitation at the end of the
service, I said a prayer of repentance and reconciliation and
became a child of our Lord. Allelujah! From that day on I never
believed again that I was alone. I was filled with peace. Two
weeks later the Lord delivered me from my addiction to
nicotine.
I spent the
next years drawing closer to Jesus through church, Bible
studies, leading a small home group and participating in mission
trips. As my 5th born again anniversary approached, I
prayed to the Lord for a special way to celebrate. He led me to
attend a messianic Jewish congregation. These are Jews who
believe Yeshua is the Messiah, and who teach the Bible from the
perspective of the Jewish culture. After a year of study with
them, I joined them for a group trip to Israel. I realized how
the Lord had worked in me! I was never interested in the Jews
before and would never have thought of going to Israel for the
thought that it was a dangerous place! But after that trip I was
changed inside. I applied to volunteer with an organization
based in Jerusalem, and was to start my assignment in July 07.
I thought
this as the Lord’s will, yet, the Lord had other plans for me.
In April I was diagnosed with cancer. It was like walking into a
wall — all plans had to be set aside, and I had to make serious
decisions. What would become of me?
The day
after my diagnosis, I began going to the elders of God’s church
for prayer and oil anointing. I read the scriptures and prayed
hard for divine healing. The more information I received from
the doctors — the pamphlets and manuals about cancer — the more
resistant I became to their treatment. I was dismayed that I
could find nothing of God in all their information! Nothing but
chemotherapy and radiation and all the side effects. I didn’t
want to have anything to do with the doctors! I didn’t want to
worry that if they treated me the cancer could come back. I
wanted God to heal me so that I would know I was really healed.
Even though I prayed for healing it seemed sensible to have the
surgery to cut out the small tumor. On May 17th it
was done and a friend of mine, whom the Lord miraculously
brought to me at a dance class months before, stayed with me the
night before and took me to the hospital in the early morning.
She waited hours before and after the surgery, and read to me
from the Bible. We cried, laughed and prayed. The surgery went
well, the tumor was completely removed, but cancer cells were
found in the lymph nodes.
I wondered
why my mission to Israel had been cancelled. I had nowhere to go
for help but to my church family. I was reminded of how true was
Jesus’ saying “who are my mother and my brothers?” My
church family supported me, accompanying me to doctor
appointments, helping with physical work, and most of all
praying for me. It is others’ prayer that sustained me through
times when I couldn’t pray. Knowing that people around the
world, as well as people who didn’t even know me, were praying
for me carried me through this difficult time.
I chose to
rent out a room in my house to generate income. I had mixed
feelings about having a stranger live with me, but I prayed for
a Christian woman to answer my advertisement. One day, a message
of inquiry was left on my phone and ended with “God bless you.”
I met with this lady and found that she was in an unusual
situation herself, looking for a safe place to live. As we
talked, we found we were sisters and felt the Lord was putting
us together. I knew this would be a blessing for me.
Not doing
anything specific for the Lord, I felt useless and without
direction. I asked the Lord to give me the desires of my heart
so that I could know how to serve Him and to bless Him. I
continued to cry to the Lord, reminding Him I was made in His
image and made for companionship.
One morning
I awoke with the joy of insight into what the past months really
meant in my life! Things were not standing still as I thought,
but there had been constant transformation, learning, blessing
and refining. I realized that months before I was given my
diagnosis Yeshua was working to bring people and circumstances
together in an intricate plan to provide for me all that I
needed. “The Spirit of God revealed the truth of our oneness
with Jesus as I had never known it before. How is our faith
strengthened? Not by striving after it, but by resting on the
Faithful One.” If we believe not, he abides faithful. He is the
vine, the root, I am the branch. While I did nothing, He was
faithful to do all.
I realized
I would rather have an affliction that causes me to cry out to
the Lord and to be in continual conversation with Him, than not
have an affliction. Things cannot be rushed, they really do
happen in His time. It is good to wait on Him in humility and
depend on Him. He is sweet, gentle and blesses those who are
obedient to His Word.
I began to
think about all the ways He had been blessing me all along. I
felt giddy with the Lord’s joy as severe oppression was lifted
from me! The loving manifestations of our Lord lifted up my
spirit. A favorite flower that hadn’t bloomed in five years did
bloom. A lady who came to my garage sale told me she would be my
friend and would be there for me because she had gone through
the same thing. A man came to the sale and read his poetry about
God. The next day he walked by with a bicycle someone didn’t
want any more and I was able to fix it up and now find joy in
riding in the park. My persimmon tree has many blossoms on it,
last year there were very few. The Lord gave me a dream that I
should understand direction to comply with the doctors’
suggested treatment. I was told about a place of prayer for
healing. It was at a prayer healing that I was told by a prayer
warrior that she felt it was from God for me, “Emmy receive your
healing.” I left in awe of the Lord. Oh, my Abba! I recalled a
verse the prayer warrior had given me, Psalm 32:8, “I will
instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will
guide you with My eye.”
Even though
I was not able to go to the mission field in Israel, the Lord
brought my mission field to me. I am able to provide a quiet and
peaceful environment for the lady living with me and to help her
with chores and the business of life. I am greatly blessed that
the Lord, by unusual circumstances, caused me to be examined
before I left for Israel and that the disease I no longer have
was found. That He brings brothers and sisters, from around the
world into my life at just the right time, to pray for me. That
the Lord does heal in many different ways. He may heal by divine
healing, as he did when He delivered me from my addiction to
nicotine, or by the doctors to whom he has given ability to
diagnose and to treat. He uses the saved and the unsaved to
effect His purpose.
My biggest
lesson over these past months was that the Lord has indeed been
implanting in my heart His desires for me. Last Fall I attended
a conference about the threat of the spread of Islam. The
conference was organized by a Christian ministry and held on a
university campus in a city where several mosques can be found.
Muslim converts spoke about their experiences and gave a little
of their testimony. On exiting the conference I was handed a DVD
which I did not watch for several weeks. When I did watch it, I
was spellbound. I saw that these people had daily work lives and
life issues just the same as we all do. They were more real to
me because I saw them from a different perspective. They had
daily lives just like ours. One was a jihadist. Each is under
bondage to lies to guide their lives and some live to hate.
Their god provides them no way of salvation. The Lord visited
each of the three of them in dreams, and as His love overcame
them, their lives were changed for eternity. Praise God! It was
an illustration of how the Lord works and how it is indeed
better for us that He went to His Father and is no longer
limited in time and space by an earthly body. It made me wonder
how many people He visits at the same time. Is He the angel of
the gospel? (Rev 14:6) Now I am doing volunteer work for the
ministry that published the DVD. Many are taught how to explain
the Good News to Islam deceived. Groups go to local mosques and
distribute Christian literature and Bibles to those living in
darkness.
A couple
weeks later, I picked up a flyer at a Christian church seminar.
The flyer advertised classes in understanding Islam and the
Qur’an with the goal of evangelism. The instructor encouraged
reading his book and mentioned he needs volunteers for his
ministry. I offered my services to him and he asked me to read
his book and look for any errors that needed to be corrected, as
English was a second language for him. I was able to help him
and his book has gone to the publisher for the next printing
with all changes accepted!
There were
times when I had left service after church each week and drove
down the road to the parking lot of a mosque. I sat there and
prayed against the evil lies that had put these people in
bondage and prayed that they would be led from the darkness into
the light of the kingdom of the Son of His love. Again, I look
back and see how the Lord works. How he has been leading and
teaching me. The trail of events that evolved into my
understanding of the desires of my heart had been there all
along. There is no word I know that can express how wonderful He
is; I can only say He is the Father of Miracles. I am in awe how
He works things out, how we are connected to people even around
the world, how big the kingdom of heaven is here on earth in our
brothers and sisters, how I have a very large heavenly family.
And so, my
dear ones, be encouraged that we are all one in Christ, that we
are brothers and sisters. The kingdom of heaven is within us and
our connection is alive with the spirit of Christ, it unifies us
into a large family of true brothers and sisters. We have a
privilege and an obligation to serve one another to His glory in
heaven and on earth. We can avail much by prayer because He is
our living God who loves us and hears our prayers. And know that
your kingdom family around the world prays for you, as does He.
He has a plan for you, and one day we will meet in Heaven.
May God
bless you richly until then. Yes, as Hebrews 13: 15 says: Lo,
I will never leave you nor forsake you.
Your Sister
in Christ,
Emmy |
