God's protection in my times of trouble

Psalms 40:5-

Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works, which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward.….if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.

I was born and brought up in a small village in South India. My parents named me Moody. Even though my father was a schoolteacher, he spent most of his time preaching to the people about the love and saving grace of Jesus Christ. My parents taught me about the love of Jesus Christ and the importance of living a life that is pleasing to Him. I knew the love of Jesus Christ and accepted him into my life when I was 9 years of age. Ever since I made that decision, the devil was after me. He has tried to destroy me several times. One day, it was a very hot summer afternoon; my parents told one of our workers to clean our well. The well was about thirty- five feet deep. There was only two or three feet of water in the bottom of our deep well. The worker was emptying water, tying a bucket on the end of a long rope. He was pulling the water for a long time and because of a good spring under the well, he was not getting anywhere. I told him to tie another bucket on the other end of the rope and I will climb into the well, you pull one bucket up and I will fill the other with water. He thought that would be a good idea. I climbed into the well after talking to my father about the idea. While I was filling one bucket, somehow, the other bucket got stuck on the pulley on top. The movement of the rope made the bucket to fall on to my head. I didn’t feel the pain because of the shock. I thought everything was spinning around me. My dad climbed down on a ladder and took me out from the well. In a few minutes, I regained my conscience. The whole neighborhood was on our front yard, by the time I got to the top of the well. My dad knew I was in trouble. My skull was fractured by the impact of the bucket. He knew if blood gets into my brain, it could cause death or permanent damage. He prayed for me and stuck a bandage right over the fracture to keep the blood from seeping into my brain. In an hour, I was in the surgery room in a hospital. The doctor told my dad after the surgery that it does not look very good. If he makes it through a week, he will be fine. Every night my dad knelt by my hospital bed and prayed for me. After a week, Dr. Benjamin, the surgeon came to my room. He had a smile on his face. He told my dad that I would be fine. God saved me from that terrible accident.

Two years later, I got sick. I had boils all over my body, from head to toe. I was in pain I couldn’t lay down on the bed, I couldn’t bend any of my joints, I couldn’t hold anything with my fingers. My dad was in a Seminary in North India. My aunt took me to different local doctors. They gave me medicines to drink and to apply to my skin. Taking a shower was almost impossible. When I took a shower, blood started to come out of the boils. I knew how Job felt. My aunt took me to a hospital. The doctor said I have nephritis- infection of the kidneys. The doctors, husband and wife, were relatives of ours. They were kind to me. They tried everything to make me feel better. Nothing worked. I knew the end was near. My aunt put my head on her lap and prayed and I felt the teardrops falling on me. She knew she was about to lose her nephew. I was getting weak. Someone suggested to my aunt to take me to a bigger hospital. I told her, “ I don’t want to go to another hospital. I just want to go home and die peacefully in my own bed.” I didn’t have a choice. My loved ones took me to a modern hospital with all the latest medical equipment and doctors whom are trained in western hospitals. One couple, they were both doctors, Dr. Joseph and Susy, visited me everyday. They showed special interest in my well being. I later found that they didn’t have children of their own. I spent almost a month in that hospital, nothing happened. While I was in the hospital, my father had a dream. He saw that I was really sick and I was saying, ‘I want to see my father before I die.’ The next morning, he left his Seminary to see me. When he came, I was really sick. He talked to the specialists. They said I would need new kidneys. My kidneys are damaged because of the infection. There was only one hospital in South India that did kidney transplant at that time. It was too far and we couldn’t afford the expensive surgery. My dad took me home and he, along with my mother and a few believers, started praying for me. God completely healed me. The devil failed to get me. Our family moved to the U.S.

God saved me several times from bad accidents. One time I was driving from Washington DC to Oklahoma with another family.  It was around 2:00 A.M. We were all very tired.  I went to sleep while I was driving.  When I woke up, my car was already in the shoulder. I looked to the right there was a deep ditch. In a second, I would have been in the ditch along with the others. God was there to help me.

I went to Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania to do rafting, in Youghiogheny river. The river runs through the mountains of Western Pennsylvania. We had fun in the rubber raft going over strong rapids all morning. Late in the afternoon, after lunch, we all decided to swim in the river. I can swim, but I am not an expert swimmer. Somehow, I got into a whirlpool. Next thing I knew, I was going around and around deep inside the river. I tried everything to come out. I knew I was trying in vain to come out. God saved me from there. God gave me an idea. Instead of trying to go up, I went down to the bottom and crawled a few feet away from the whirlpool. Once I was away from the whirlpool, I got out in no time. The devil failed again.

Another problem I had was psoriasis. It was really bad. I went to several skin specialists for treatment. One time, when my brother was a medical student at the University of Michigan, he made an appointment for me to see one of the best skin specialists in the country. He looked at my affected area and said it’s only going to get worse. He said I have to live with this condition rest of my life. I came home and asked the greatest physician, Jesus Christ, for help, He cured the psoriasis problem completely.

When my wife Lali was pregnant with our second child, she complained about pain in the backside of her stomach. I took her to the hospital. They ran some tests and couldn’t find anything. Finally, one doctor said she might have kidney stones. Drink a lot of fluids and she would be fine. By the next morning, her condition got worse. Her stomach was getting big and she was getting very sick. They tried very hard to find the cause of the problem. When I was standing outside her room, one Indian doctor, Dr. Narendra Tyagi, was coming from the other side. When he saw me,  he introduced himself and asked me why I was standing there. I explained everything. He asked me if he could take a look at my wife. I gave him permission. God sent that doctor there at that time. He listened to Lali’s stomach area with his stethoscope. He told me that he could hear the sound of fluid dripping inside her stomach. He said, “we need to open her up and find out where the problem was.” By then, Lali was turning blue and her stomach was getting bigger by the hour. Dr. Tyagi said that if we open her up I might lose my child. When I saw the condition of my wife I said go ahead and do the surgery. It was late in the afternoon. They took her into the operating room. My brother Finney and myself were waiting in the waiting room. Around 9:00 P.M., one of the doctors, Dr. Indu Mital came out of the surgery room. She said, “I have bad news for you. Your wife has acute pancreatitis, infection of the pancreas. (The sound of dripping fluid that Dr. Tyagi mentioned was the fluid coming out of her pancreas.) Moody, you are going to lose your wife. She is going to die either tonight or in the next few days. It is better not to try to save the baby.” (My wife was only six months pregnant then.) I told her, “You are saying my wife is going to die. If my baby is alive, how I can let the baby die. She kept on insisting that it would be a mistake to save the baby. There is a good chance that the baby would die and if he makes it; he will have all kinds of problems when he grows up. God, through the Holy Spirit helped me in that terrible time and gave me the strength to make right decisions. I felt the comforting presence of Jesus Christ that might. Just because I insisted, they put my baby in the incubator. He was a tiny little human form. He weighed less that 1 kg. He was only big enough to fit in the palm of a hand. They kept my wife in the intensive care unit, on a life support system in one floor of St. Joseph’s Mercy Hospital in Pontiac, MI and my son in another floor in an incubator with all the little machines connected. Next few days and months were very “touchy”. By the next day, I couldn’t recognize my wife. Her body swelled up it hardly fit on the bed. There were IV stands, monitors, tubes, wires and respirators scattered throughout the room. My wife lay unconscious for days. Friends, relatives and fellow believers came from different states.  Most people came, looked at Lali, and left the room with tears in their eyes. On the second day, my father Pastor Abraham K. Abraham told Dr. Tyagi, “You are saying that my daughter-in-law is not going to come out of this condition. We believe in the Almighty God and we believe He can deliver her form this problem. Could you give us permission to pray for her?” Dr. Tyagi said, “You may pray for her. Prayer will give you comfort and peace of mind, but I don’t think she is going to come out of this. From my experience, I can tell you her condition is so bad she is not going to make it.” A lot of people prayed for her. The day the surgery was performed on my wife, I was taken into a room with two grief counselors. Their job was to make me ready for the inevitable, the death of my wife. I told them I know she is not going to die. If that happens, God is with me to give me comfort.

Dr. Khan and her team worked very hard on my son in the pediatric ICU. I believed God sent Dr. Khan and Dr. Tyagi to help us. My son, Shawn, (the name Shawn means gift from God) had all kinds of problems. When he went to sleep, his heart stopped. So, they put a mechanical device under him to wake him up when his heart stopped. Since he was so tiny, they had a hard time finding a blood vessel large enough to put an IV in. Finally, they found one on the side of his head. He stopped breathing several times. One time I had a call from the hospital. The nurse said, “Your son is not breathing. Come soon.” My brother-in-law was with me at that time. He comforted me all the way to the hospital. When we got to the PICU, Shawn was breathing. The staff said, “ We almost lost him.”

I was busy running back and forth, spending time with my wife, son and my oldest daughter Sheena. I also spent a lot of time talking to different specialists. The employees at the hospital were very kind to me. I also spent some time not just praying, but talking to God. I asked him several questions. I conversed with Him one day, “God, I believe that you created everything and the Bible teaches that also. If you created everything, what is a small pancreas? I believe you can create a new pancreas or heal the one that is already damaged.” (Both my kidneys were damaged because of infection. God healed me completely. I have seen specialists after I came to this country. They all said nothing is wrong with my kidneys.)

My wife was unconscious for several days. One day, when I was holding her hand, she moved one of her fingers. That was the first lively sign I experienced. I asked in her ear, “Can you hear me?” She moved her finger again. I was very happy. They removed the respirator. She started to breathe by herself. The doctors were very optimistic. They said it looks like she is going to come out of this problem but she will be in a wheelchair. She will not be able to perform her everyday chores. The God I believe on, He is plenteous in mercy. He provided her enough strength to walk out of the hospital.

I experienced God’s love and care when I went through pain and sufferings. The love and care we experience from others will only last for a short time, but God’s love is everlasting. From all these experiences I went through, I can tell you that God sometimes let us go through pain and sufferings to teach us His love and care towards us. When nobody is there to help you in your painful situations, God will be there to help you. The Bible says, “God sent his only begotten son,” Jesus Christ to save us. He is our refuge and strength in our time of trouble. When your friends and loved ones leave you, He will stay with you and comfort you. When the doctors cannot cure your sickness, He can heal you completely. When you face violent storms and difficulties, He can give you calmness and peace within you. When you say I cannot take it anymore, He is there to carry the weight for you. When people falsely accuse you, He will say I know your heart more that anyone else. When you say, I cannot trust anyone, He will be there as the greatest friend you can trust. “He will never leave you, nor forsake you.” Dear reader, would you give Jesus Christ a chance in your life? Would you ask him to come into your heart? He can take away all your problems.

When I went through all these problems, I did not know that God was prparing me to be a testimony for His glory in others lives. Whenever I get a chance I go to differnt churches and testify to theme about the love of Jesus Christ and how He still heals people from terrible sicknesses and troubles when doctors cannot help us. God also sent me to different countries in Africa, Asia, Middle East, and South America. I am not doing enough for what Jesus Christ has done for me. He saved me from eternal hell and saved me and my family from different sicknesses and problems. I just want to glorify the name of Jesus Christ for what He has done for me wherever and whenever I get a chance.


My e-mail address is: moodyabraham@yahoo.com