What Is Faith?
(Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1)
At 19 years old she started out her career as a successful, wealthy nurse. By her early twenties she owned many properties and was the top in her class and field.
Now she has nothing.
She was searching for LIFE. She worked her fingers to the bone for money, cars, houses, relationships, success. “But there was NO LIFE in any of that! I searched everything I had earned and there just WAN’T any life to be found” Deborah told me over dinner last month.
It took the end of her life to find the begging of true life. While she may have been immune to hunger, homelessness, nakedness, and being uneducated she wasn’t immune to sickness. In her early 30’s she laid in a hospital bed with stage 4 breast cancer, a rapidly failing liver, and a skin condition that caused her skin to crack and bleed with even the slightest movement. She said “It was the most excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. The doctors said I had only a few days to live. One day I heard a voice tell me to stand up and walk out of the hospital…So I did.”
(Deborah is the woman in the green shirt sitting at the table)
Today she is in her 50’s she has no cancer, no health problems to speak of. The Lord told her to move to KL (a city about 6 hours away) and go to church. Fresh out of the hospital, skin still excruciating, she boarded a local bus and made the pain staking 6 hour move to KL. She left all her properties and all of her possessions behind. After some time in KL a woman invited her to Church. God completely healed her body and began showing her what true life was. Several years passed and she was felt that she was being called back to her hometown to volunteer at a children’s out reach.
The outreach is a very difficult environment to work in. It caters to Children of all ages whose families are very poor and cannot afford to send their children to school or have been kicked out of the school. During Deborah’s time as a volunteer principal and teachers began to quit and there was no money to hire anyone new so Deborah took the center on by herself.
For almost 15 years Deborah has been running the center on her own. There are 8-15 children a day. At the center, Deborah feeds the children 3 meals a day, bathes them, teaches them about hygiene, how to eat healthy, and thoroughly teaches them all the subjects and more that they would learn in school. She is required to prepare the children for all the normally required state exams. The center is free for all the children and Deborah does not get paid as a teacher, nanny, foster parent, or any other title. It doesn’t end there, after working 14-15 hour days at the center, usually by herself, she works a part time job on nights and weekends in order to afford food, supplies, and bills for the children and the center. If you ask her how she manages she says “God is good. God is faithful he always provides.” The only way she gets any help is when the occasional missionary or volunteer hears about her center and stops in to help for an hour or so.
There is no back-up plan, no 401K, and no savings plan. She can’t live in luxury, she can’t call in sick but she is filled with Joy. Jesus radiates from her like I’ve never seen in anyone. She truly lives by faith alone! She believes with all her being that God will provide, that he will be her strength, that he will keep her healthy and HE DOES! The Lord rewards her faith every day and I cannot fathom the riches she has waiting for her in heaven.
Would you give it ALL up for Christ? I thought I was doing that when I came on this race but every month God shows me just how much I REALLY have and how much more I have to give up if only I am willing. I want to have FAITH LIKE THAT. REminds me of this great song!
