(Taken from Practical Christianity No 224 Sep-Oct 1963, pp19-21 published by the Officers’ Christian Union (OCU) (now the Armed Forces’ Christian Union).
As a result of an illness in childhood, my wife was left with a weak heart. Half of her youth had been spent in hospital. Over the past eight years her condition deteriorated faster than surgery could develop to help her in any way. in February 1961 she was pretty well an invalid and collapsed. In hospital her case was reviewed. I prayed night after night, hour after hour that, if it was God’s will she might be cured, until I was sure that I had God’s answer ‘yes’. So positive was I that, when in July we were told ‘No hope of surgery’, I was dumbfounded.
My wife’s faith almost cracked and for the first time in my life my faith was badly shaken. Together with our minister and fellow elders, I could not reconcile the situation. God had answered in the affirmative and had then seemed to break His promise. We remained in the perplexity until one day, talking it over with a friend, he suggested that the answer was not ‘no’ but ‘not yet’. Heartened, we started to pray again.
In October it was decided to send my wife to Hammersmith hospital for tests on more advanced equipment. The surgeon said he was prepared to remove her badly leaking aortic valve and replace it with a new type of plastic valve; she was the first British woman to have this operation.
We used the next two months to build up a prayer team thousands strong across the UK and Canada. Then came the longest day, when after 9½ hours in theatre, my wife emerged with a renewed heart.
This was wonderful but more was to come, the ‘exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think’. Within three days my wife was back on her own ward on regular meals. In ten days, she was up, and in five weeks home again. Every day since she has gone from strength to strength. She already leads a normal life. And, wonder of wonders, the removal of the worst fault gave her heart the strength to overcome its other defects to a great extent.
Why should it be? The surgeon said that her heart would not have lasted another three months. Now she has a life expectancy of another forty years. None of her specialists can understand how she has recovered so quickly. Medically it should not be.
What have we learned?
- Perseverance – people continued to pray even when, humanly speaking, the doctors destroyed their hopes.
- Patience – wait is as real an answer as ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
- Power – God is able.
- Proof – we know that prayer change things.
- Practical gratitude – since my wife’s recovery, she feels that she has been given her life back for a purpose and so in this spirit we go forward together to serve the Lord.
*Photo Credit: https://www.pexels.com/@raul-infante-gaete-2660047