By Robin Sam
ON Nov 3 in 2008 when my mother passed away, she was 65. She was unwell for a night. We rushed her to a hospital near our home and got her admitted in the emergency ward sometime before daybreak. The doctors who examined her did not find anything unusual – they said it could be a case of food poisoning.
They put her on regular IV fluids and said she could go home after the chief doctor saw her in the morning. An alert lady doctor who came in the morning shift examined her again, looked into her medical history and prescribed some more tests since she was a diabetic. The ECG report did not look good and so they paged a consultant heart specialist to hurry. But before he could arrive and before my mother’s treatment could begin, she breathed her last. She had multiple blocks in her heart and had suffered a silent but massive attack the previous night, the doctors said.
We knew she was diabetic. However, never once did she complain about chest pain. We did not suspect that anything was amiss with her heart condition. About 30 minutes before she passed away, I went into the ICU ward to see if she was doing OK. I asked her if she wanted to have some milk. She asked me to go out to the cafe and have some tea myself. She took one sip of the warm milk and returned the glass back to me. She asked me to speak to the nurse to help her in changing her overnight saree. I told the nurse and moved out of the ward. Minutes later, the nurse ran out of the ward towards me saying my mother was sinking. She was gone before I scurried to her bed.
A few days after her burial service, my father told me perhaps mother would have still been alive if only we had taken her to a ‘better hospital’. A few days later, he said: “If only we had asked for a second opinion from another specialist…’ The refrain haunted me along with the void in the house that looked bereft of color without her. My father’s grief and my own personal loss added to the pall around. Slowly, I started believing it too: ‘If only I had taken to her a better hospital…’ Several days after her death, I tossed around in my bed sleepless. I woke up in the night and walked around the house aimlessly. I wept when no one was around and if my wife or daughter walked by, I wiped the tears and turned my face away. ‘If only I had…’
These scenes from the past played out in my mind recently when I was reading John 11 during my daily devotion. I read it again and again to come to terms with what God was ministering to me. A balm for an old but still sore wound. Let me share it with you if it would help some of you reading this now.
Mary, Martha and their brother Lazarus lived in a small town called Bethany. When the brother became sick and died, Mary and Martha told a visiting Jesus Christ: “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:20).
Sure enough, that statement revealed their faith in the Lord. However, their faith was still poor and weak. What they did not realize at that time was that our Lord could heal with a word and from a distance. He did just that in healing the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8:5-13). Like Martha and Mary, we often fail to understand that in His beloved’s life and death, God has a plan. Just as Jesus used Lazarus’ death for the glory of God, He can use any event in our life for His purpose. If we think that something that happened in our life occurred without His knowledge and will, then we are totally and terribly wrong.
Most of us have sometime or the other thought on these lines: ‘If only that money that I expected came my way…’, ‘If only that person whom I counted on, helped me then…’, ‘If only that promotion came two years ago…’, ‘If only I had married that person…’, ‘If only I had secured that job.’ The lives that accumulate and nurture such ‘ifs…’ are miserable ones. If we believe those terrible ‘ifs’, then we are living in a fool’s paradise. These miserable thoughts are never from God but from the father of lies (John 8:44) and ‘the thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy’ (John 10:10).
So, what is the truth? The truth is none of us have any influence over some of the things that happen in our lives. David knew this and so he said: ‘My times are in Your hand’ (Psalm 31:15). When did he say this? Look at verse 11 to see the background. He said this when he became a reproach among his enemies, especially his neighbors and became repulsive to his acquaintances. But did he ever lose his faith on the Lord? No, in Psalm 56:3-4 he said: ‘Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?’ When our God led the Israelites in the wilderness it didn’t matter to Him whether it was day or night, He led them just the same (Psalm 78:14).
This Jesus is able to lead us even in our old age and gray hairs (Isaiah 46:4). Our Lord is good, all the time! Jesus is a good God (Mark 10:18).
The Lord will do a mighty thing, a new thing for those who live in the past and bemoan seemingly lost opportunities. He is ready to give rest to all those who labor and are heavy laden (Matthew 11:28). But trust in Him precedes the rest that He gives.
Robin Sam is the editor of The Christian Messenger magazine. He can be reached at editor [at] christianmessenger [dot] in
