Godsends
A hands-on response from God
My wife and
I lost our baby when she was four months pregnant. We went for a scan
at the hospital and it showed there was no heartbeat. We called the baby
Angel and he was cremated a week later.
I went through a
multitude of emotions, but in all of them was hate. I had nobody to
blame, so I blamed God. How could He let our little baby die?
So I grieved with my wife and never prayed. My belief in Him had gone. As far as I was concerned, there was no God.
A few weeks later, I was alone in our house and began to think about
what I had said to God in anger. I won't repeat it here; what was said
is between us. But slowly I began to regret.
I went
upstairs, knelt and prayed. Something told me to read the Bible, which
was an old Gideon Bible that had sat unopened in the cupboard for
years. I opened the Bible at random not knowing what to read.
"Ask for forgiveness" was the first line that I read. Somehow I
realised that all of these years I had sinned. I felt full of remorse.
I burst into tears and told God that I was sorry, that I didn't want be
filled with anger. I asked Him to be with me and help me.
At
that moment, I felt a hand on my back. I was startled, I jumped and
turned to see who was there. I never saw or heard anything, but I felt
as clearly as I feel the keyboard as I type. The hand of God had
reached out to me and touched me.
I opened the Bible twice more and was given two further instructions: "Follow me," and "Rejoice in me."
I didn't know how to follow God, but I am reading the Bible for the first time and am learning. It's not going to be easy, but from now on I am going to try and walk the narrow path.
I'm 34 now, but would like to finish by telling you about a poster I
saw when I was 15. Now at 15, posters are important in a boy's room,
and posters of cars and motorbikes filled my walls. I was in a shop one
day looking through the posters when I saw one of a beach with
footprints in the sand. At the top it said, "Lord, you have walked with
me all these years. Why in my hour of need did you leave me? I only see
one set of footprints."
Below, it said, "My child, I never left you -- I carried you."
Matthew M.
United Kingdom
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