Four years ago I was rushed by ambulance to an emergency room. Four years ago I began a second life.
Hospital tests showed that I had late-stage cirrhosis of the liver. I had contracted Hepatitis C about 30 years earlier, when I was a teenager, and it had taken that long to have any noticeable effect on my liver. Now the effect was as severe as it was sudden. I was told that unless I received a liver transplant I would die.
From that day, the hospital became my second home. There I lived through some life-changing experiences—times of tears, times of acute loneliness and despair, times of soul-searching, times in dry and desolate places, and times in oases of joy. Best of all were my personal visits from Jesus, of which I had two.
The first question that came to me when I heard I was dying was, “Why me?” The second was “What have I done wrong to deserve this?” I didn’t ask those questions in an angry or self-righteous way, but because I wanted to know if there was anything in my life I needed to change. I wanted to become a new person.
Whatever it was, I told the Lord, I was sorry. I knew Jesus had forgiven me and lifted the burden of guilt when I received Him as my Savior, but I had made a lot of mistakes since and was truly sorry. I replayed every situation I had been in since Jesus had found and rescued me over 30 years earlier. I thought about every person I had hurt and every unloving thing I had said or done. I knew that when I arrived in Heaven the Lord was going to review my life, and I wanted to make that process as painless as possible by coming clean now.
I was put on a waiting list for a liver transplant—a wait that lasted 20 months. During that time, the illness began to affect my brain. I became confused and started losing my memory. At times when I was out of the hospital and needed to get home, I would get lost in my own neighborhood. It was frightening!
Then one night, after some serious soul-searching, a man appeared in my room. He turned to me and said that He loved me. I thought at first that I was hallucinating, but I wasn’t—it was real! I knew immediately that the man was Jesus. The room lit up—His love and warmth were that strong—and He kept telling me over and over that He loved me and would always be there. “No matter what you have done, I will always be there. I want to be your best friend.”
As He walked across the room, I thought He was going to bump into a chair, so I said, “Watch out for that chair!” He just chuckled. Who was I to tell Jesus, who with His Father created the universe, to watch out for a chair? What a joke! He had just finished telling me that He wanted to be my best friend, and that’s how it was—like a good laugh between best friends. He didn’t talk to me about my faults. He didn’t mention anything about my past. He didn’t say anything about my illness or whether I would be healed. He only said, “I want to love you, I want to be your friend, and I’ll always be there for you.”
I fell asleep, and when I awoke in the morning I prayed. “I don’t know what happened last night,” I told Jesus, “but if I wasn’t hallucinating, You are going to have to prove it to me.” And that evening it happened again. Jesus appeared in my room and said the same things. The message He was trying to drive home was that anytime I needed Him, He would be there. Since that experience, I can talk to Jesus just like I would talk to anyone else.
A month and a half after my transplant, I developed problems with my new liver and landed back in the hospital, in intensive care. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, and eventually sent me home. I was dying again.
After about a month and a half of intense suffering, I couldn’t stand the pain any longer and told Jesus that I wanted to go home to Heaven. “If You’re not going to heal me,” I told Him, “then take me home.” He chose not to do that, but He was with me when I needed Him most, just like He had promised, and He helped the worst to pass. I’m still here.
I don’t know what else Jesus has in store for me, but I know I’m not the man I was before. He’s also given me the best job in the world—telling people about Jesus and what He’s done for me. I may not be completely healed, but I’m happy to be alive and have a purpose, and I’m going to continue to love and trust Him.
My life is still on the line. I face death every day. All I have left is Jesus, but Jesus is all that matters. I wake up each morning and say, “Lord, keep me through one more day.” And when I get up and open the shades on my window and see the sun shining out there, I shout for joy. I want to get up and dance! Life with my best friend is precious!
Jesus really, really loves you too. He wants to be your best friend, your buddy. And He will always be there for you.
Heaven’s healing balm
By Maria Fontaine
From a letter to the parents of five teenagers who were killed in a traffic accident
Dear ones,
My heart breaks for you whose hearts are broken. My eyes weep for you who weep. I feel your agony and loss. All I’ve been thinking about since I heard the news is you who are suffering so unspeakably.
You had such great plans for your children. They were growing up so beautifully, so radiantly, and now they’re gone—instantly! Perhaps all you can say is, “Why, Lord? How could You punish us so severely?” My heart breaks for you as you endure such torment of spirit, and I pray that even in your sorrow you can know His peace.
I recently lost the one who was dearest on earth to me, so I know what it’s like. I know what it feels like to suddenly realize that things are never going to be the same again. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye either. I didn’t get a chance to ask his forgiveness for all the ways I’d failed him. I didn’t get a chance to put my arms around him and love him one last time or assure him of how much he meant to me. I know what it’s like to battle condemnation, but I also know what it’s like to receive the Lord’s abundant supply of grace in time of need, His peace that passes all understanding, His strength to go on another day, His answers to my many questions.
At a time like this, the only thing we can do is turn to Jesus and His Word for comfort. I can speak from experience. I know that in spite of the loss, in spite of the tears, in spite of the heartache, in spite of the questions, you can have peace knowing that Jesus loves you. The most important thing for you to remember right now is that the Lord loves you. In spite of the battles, in spite of the loss, in spite of the confusion, in spite of the heartbreak, you must hold on to the knowledge that He loves you.
The Lord’s love is unending, unfailing, and unchanging. No matter what happens, no matter how dark it looks, no matter how difficult the battle, no matter how dark the tunnel, no matter how long the suffering, Jesus loves you—and He doesn’t give His love stingily. He doesn’t mete it out a little bit here or a little bit there as you earn it, and then get angry with you and withdraw His love if you are not good enough or make mistakes. That’s not the way the Lord does it! He never stops pouring forth His love freely and abundantly. He never turns His back. He never closes His eyes or His ears to your needs or your cries for help and comfort.
When you feel the most desperate and the situation is darkest, when you feel the most confused and hardly even know how to pray, then the Lord will pour forth His love even more abundantly—not less! He knows you need it even more to wash away the pain and wipe away the tears and comfort your broken hearts.
Some of you probably feel great condemnation. Some of you may even be angry with the Lord for not preventing this. Some of you may be feeling bitter. Most of you will be feeling bewildered and shocked and greatly, greatly saddened.
The only thing that can wash away these pains is your faith in the Lord’s love, that “He does all things well” (Mark 7:37) and that all things truly work together for good to those who love Him (Romans 8:28). No matter how strange and hard it is to understand, even this will eventually work together for good. You must be assured that Jesus loves you very much and that He hasn’t abandoned you now. You must cling to the promises He has given you in His Word. Even when you can’t feel His love or see His love, you can know His love through faith. Your faith in His love is the only thing that is strong enough to quench these fires of sorrow.
Right now you feel that this whole thing is a sign of His lack of love or His anger or His displeasure. You look back and have so many regrets. You’re filled with so much remorse. But the Lord’s message to you is to let these feelings go—and you can let them go! You must let them go! Let them be washed away under the flood of the Lord’s love.
We don’t have to do penance for our failures. We don’t have to suffer. We don’t have to weep. We don’t have to endure condemnation. We can find the peace of the Lord in His forgiveness and love. “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54).
During my time of sorrow, when I was experiencing feelings of guilt and condemnation, I just couldn’t think about the past—not even the good memories of sweet times. I had to leave the past and think about the present. When I looked back at the past, I was overwhelmed with sorrow, but when I refused to dwell on the past but instead focused my attention on the present and the bright future to come, I could feel the assurance of Jesus’ love and see the wisdom in His plan. You must not concentrate on the past. It’s over with; it’s done! In time you’ll be able to pull out the happy memories and enjoy them without feeling sadness at every turn, but for now it’s probably better to not think about the past at all.
If we only realized how real and how close the spirit world and Heaven are! There is only a veil—only a very thin, almost transparent veil—that separates us from it. Don’t feel that you’ve lost your loved ones, because you haven’t! They knew and loved the Lord in this life, and now they’re with Him. They’ve gone ahead of you to the other side of the veil, where you will one day be reunited in the Lord’s infinite eternal love.
They’re gone, but they’re still with you; they’re still close—even closer than they were before. If you listen and have faith, you will hear their whispers comforting and encouraging and instructing you. Even if you had differences when together in this life, as everyone does at one time or another, even if you didn’t always see eye to eye, even if you had misunderstandings, things will be different now. Now you’ll understand and be more united and closer than ever before. All this is possible if you will only have faith.
This separation will not be for long. As the Bible says, it’s only for a “moment.” Then you will all be together forever in Heaven, nevermore to be separated, nevermore to feel such pain and loss. In spite of the pain you feel right now, you can be blessed with the hope and knowledge of Heaven and the Lord.
Your loss is great and your pain seems overwhelming, but it is small compared to the loss of those who do not have faith, who do not know Jesus, who don’t know what happens to their loved ones when they go on. They have no consolation, no comfort, nowhere to turn. They have no hope of seeing their loved ones again or being reunited. But you who are blessed with the truth of the Bible know that your loved ones are with Jesus and are happy, overjoyed, healthy, strong, and beautiful. This separation is only for a time, and then your pain and tears will be forgotten. Have faith!
He never stops pouring forth His love freely and abundantly. He never turns His back. He never closes His eyes or His ears to your needs or your cries for help and comfort.
You will all be together forever in Heaven, nevermore to be separated, nevermore to feel such pain and loss.
The power of love is stronger
By Michael Dooley
I had just returned from a very exhausting humanitarian aid mission to a country that had recently suffered a debilitating war. I felt depleted emotionally. Songwriting was the furthest thing from my mind as I tried to deal with the images that still haunted me. Perhaps the most difficult were the images from the hospitals we had visited: the sunken eyes of emaciated children looking blankly into mine; the wistful, sometimes tear-laced smiles of their mothers. The hardness of heart that had caused this suffering rankled within me.
How would Jesus have been with those children, I wondered. How would He have held them, blessed them, healed them? An impression began to form in my mind. There was melody, too, in that silence—one that I could sense rather than hear. I sat down at my keyboard and began to play the music I felt welling up inside. The words began to flow, and I sensed a broken, loving heart that had been healed by the tender touch of the Master’s hands nearly 2,000 years earlier.
In about 20 minutes the song was there, almost in its entirety. Tears rolled down my face. Contained in the song was the healing my spirit had been longing for. The pain of those broken lives was still with me, but there was new hope that they could be changed and redeemed by the power of a love that was stronger than all the hatred anyone could contrive and bring against another.
The Light of Your Love
(Song of Mary Magdalene)
By Michael Dooley
I saw how You stooped to lift a child,
Watched how You gently, kindly smiled.
That’s when I knew how much I wanted
To be part of You.
I saw how You mended broken lives,
Felt how You cared and sympathized,
Saw how their heartaches made You cry,
And I loved the heart of You.
And all of my hopes, my dreams, my fears,
Seem to dissolve within Your tears,
And I longed to hold You near
And tell You I loved You.
And all of life’s cruel and stinging trials
Vanished before Your gentle smile.
That’s when I knew my heart’s desire
Was to spend my life walking in the light of Your love.
And when You held my upturned face,
Tenderly dried my tears away,
All of my past Your love erased,
And I was born anew.
Then I saw what it cost You to be free;
I wept as I watched You die for me.
That’s when I knew that I would be
Forever in love with You.
And when You rose again and came to me,
I knew Your love was for all eternity,
And You would come one day and take me
To be with You.
And in that land of no more tears,
And in that time beyond all years,
You would embrace me, hold me near,
And tell me You loved me.
Where all of life’s cruel and stinging trials
Vanish beneath Your radiant smile,
And You fulfill my heart’s desire,
And I’ll be there forever living in the light of Your love.
(Michael Dooley is a full-time volunteer with The Family in the Middle East.)
If you haven’t met the friend who will love you through thick and thin, the One who holds the keys to overcoming and happiness and joy and eternal life, you can right now by sincerely praying a prayer like the following:
Dear Jesus, thank You for dying for me so that all my mistakes and wrongs can be forgiven. I now open the door of my heart and I ask You to please come into my life, give me Your free gift of eternal life, and be my nearest, dearest friend. Amen.
Feeding Reading: Suffering as God sees it
Some of the world’s suffering is the Devil’s doing.
Job 1:12-19; 2:6-7
Acts 10:38
2 Timothy 2:26
Some of the world’s suffering is self-inflicted, often due to greed.
Proverbs 15:27
1 Timothy 6:9-10
James 4:1-2
James 5:1-3
We often bring on suffering by sin and disobedience.
Genesis 42:21
Job 4:8 reap the same
Psalm 107:17
Jeremiah 30:15
Suffering is sometimes God’s loving chastisement.
Proverbs 3:11-12
Hebrews 12:5-12
1 Corinthians 11:32
Revelation 3:19
God has a good and loving reason when He allows suffering.
Genesis 45:4-8; 50:20
Psalm 119:71
Romans 8:28
God comforts and strengthens us when we suffer.
Matthew 5:4
John 14:18
1 Peter 5:10
Suffering can draw us closer to the Lord and teaches us His ways.
Job 23:10
Psalm 94:12
Psalm 119:71
Isaiah 48:10
John 15:2
Hebrews 12:9-11
Other good fruits of suffering:
Deuteronomy 8:2,16 (humility)
Romans 5:3b (patience)
Ecclesiastes 7:2-3 (wisdom)
2 Corinthians 1:4 (compassion)
Keep the faith.
Job 13:15a
Acts 20:23-24
Romans 12:12a
2 Corinthians 7:4b
Philippians 3:8
Hebrews 11:25-27
James 5:10-11
1Peter 4:13,16
Rewards in Heaven for earthly suffering:
Romans 8:18
2 Corinthians 1:7
2 Corinthians 4:17
2 Timothy 2:12a
Revelation 21:4
From Jesus with Love: Making things right
Life is a great cycle of cause and effect. Everyone makes choices every day, and everyone’s choices affect others. The combination of everyone’s choices and the effect those choices have on others makes the world what it is.
Every problem can be traced to some unloving or selfish choice someone made. These sins are the major cause of problems in the world today—selfishness and lack of love. People either don’t see how their wrong choices affect others or they don’t care enough to do things differently.
You may feel that the world is too messed up, that too many wrong choices have been made, that it doesn’t matter much what you do, that it’s hopeless. But that’s not true. Just as every problem can be traced to a wrong decision, every solution begins with a wise and loving decision to do the right thing, the loving and unselfish thing.
A little bit of love can make a lot of difference. One act of kindness or unselfishness can start a whole chain reaction of events that will, in the long run, make life a lot better for a lot of people. So don’t despair because there is so much suffering and grief and wrong in the world. Instead, do what you can to make things right and encourage others to do the same. The world won’t change in a day, but you can make a difference if you try.
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