Category: Forgiveness

Christian Media, Christianity, Devotional, Evangelism, Faith, Forgiveness, Healing, Hope, Miracles, Spiritual healing

Is God your Facebook friend only? Or much more?

Posted on by David L'Herroux

A few days ago, we had a visitor to UCB, and as I walked into reception, a member of the team said to the guest: ‘This is David, do you know him?’

The guest said, ‘Yes, we are friends on Facebook.’

Later, I was thinking about this and realised that in many ways, for some of us this could be our main experience of God: we are ‘Facebook friends only.’ It might be that we have experienced Him in some way; we are acquaintances, but we are not in an intimate relationship with Him. We have lost our connection, and although we are still ‘friends’, He is not our confidant or the person we go to when we are in a storm.

As a young man, I used to cry out to God for a deeper relationship with Him, for an experience of His manifested presence. I wanted to know God in a deeper way. I wanted a visitation. It was frustrating waiting for that moment. But as I began to study the scriptures and seek God, I discovered something which blew my mind. You see, God’s manifested presence is already here!

In Genesis, we read the familiar story of Adam and Eve. God created these first humans to live daily in His presence in the garden of Eden. In the Hebrew language, ‘Eden’ refers to 3 words: spot, moment, presence. In other words, ‘The delightful spot on the earth where the manifested presence of God was an open door between heaven and earth.’

It is where God originally destined humans to exist. God created water for fish, air for birds, and for humans, He gave us His presence. Because it is in His presence that we discover true intimacy with God. It is the place where we are changed and where our situations, thinking, and the people around us are also transformed.

But as we know from Genesis, Lucifer did not like this. As a former angel himself, he too must have experienced the manifest presence and glory of God, but he wanted that glory for himself. He also knew just how powerful it was, and so he was on a mission to take it away from Adam and Eve. If he could somehow negotiate with them and persuade them (of their own will) to forsake the presence of God, he then knew that man would fail.

And we know that a decision made then by Adam and Eve had an impact on mankind for generations to come. But thank God that His original plan could not be thwarted or changed. Lucifer must have thought at the time ‘Ha! I have them now.’ But he was wrong.

You see, when Christ died, he took back the authority, dominion and power that Lucifer had taken for himself, and he restored you and me (and anyone else who accepts it) back into the manifest presence of God. Christ gave us our purpose back — our meaning for living — as members of the body of Christ and God’s family.

When I first started to discover this, things began to change in me.

Through God’s plan of redemption, I no longer needed to cry out for a special visitation. The Kingdom of God — His manifest presence — was already living in me. And because of that revelation, I can live in it daily.

It means that whatever storm I am walking through, I am never alone, and it also means that while in human terms, things may look impossible, in the presence of God, ALL things are possible.

When we choose to live in His presence daily in our workplaces, school, church and in every situation we walk into, we start to see things change. We are changed, and our situations and the people around us are changed too. And the reason is simple: God’s manifest presence is already here, and in God’s presence, anything is possible.

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Devotional, Evangelism, Faith, Forgiveness, Healing, Hope

How to be a radical disciple

Posted on by David L'Herroux

How to be a radical disciple.

A few weeks ago, it was wonderful to have Jarrod Cooper with us to speak at our Foundation event for leaders. We were so blessed by Jarrod’s ministry, and I have asked him to share a few thoughts this week as a guest blog. I hope this encourages you to be radical in your discipleship.

———————————————

Radical disciples

God did not ask us to make ‘church members’, count ‘decisions’, or even have people say ‘the sinner’s prayer’ (not that I’m against any of those things necessarily). He actually told us to make disciples.

‘Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me!”’ Matt 16:24

A church member in some of today’s circles is more like the member of any social club. Some want to go to a certain church because it’s cool, big, glitzy or because it’s small, comfortable, not too demanding. All this has little to do with the real walk of faith and the real JESUS. In the gospels, we find that Jesus-followers entered into a deeply life-changing arrangement.

The disciples had to be…

Available

Busy people gave up their jobs and plans to follow Jesus after a single request. Would you or I? He may not require everyone to give up their careers, but all will have to make space for the learning and mission of being a disciple.

Teachable

Jesus told them ‘I will make you fishers of men.’ It was clear He was going to teach them. A disciple, by inference, has a teacher. If you are the leader, that’s you! Are we discipling our church members or filling in databases and doing hospital visits? Every church should be a training ground, and every Christian a soldier either in, or preparing for, battle.

Breakable

Talented Peter went through some deep, humbling experiences. Disciples accept humility and brokenness as part of the journey. Pride is at the root of all sin and must be winkled out. God will line all of us up for some rejection, failure, and being overlooked. Are we teaching our people to handle it? Are we preaching brokenness and teaching repentance? Are we confronting sin? We’ve all got to pass that test (or keep retaking it!).

Correctable

True discipleship involves some straight conversations. ‘Iron sharpens iron’, but soft, marshmallow conversations rarely change anyone deeply! Our society is so hooked on approval that often we don’t know what correction or discipline looks like any more, so we call it rejection. But correction is not rejection – it is protection. And discipline is not disapproval, it’s the removal of stuff that is going to harm you! ‘God disciplines those He loves’ (Hebrews 12:4-11) Are we raising disciples who will embrace correction and find life in it?

Connectable

Jesus called His disciples ‘to be with him.’ Friendship with a more experienced man or woman of God and a group of fellow disciples is a vital part of healthy growth. Are we allowing a few to get close, to walk the walk with us, and not just listen on Sundays? You can’t be connected to everyone, but we all can disciple a few.

Sendable

Another new word! Jesus ‘sent them out.’ Are we sending the troops somewhere, adventuring selflessly as part of a vision bigger than ourselves? Every true disciple is a missionary.

So are we raising disciples or gathering members? Some of us need to change the polarity of our relationship with our church members, because it should not be the leaders who are chasing around after members.

Instead, the leaders should be saying to others ‘Follow me, and I will make you…’ (Matthew 4:19). Leaders of the Church of the future won’t simply be carers and counsellors (though both are necessary), but pioneers who get a vision, make it plain for all to see, then march off to a brave new world with disciples following. In this way the Church will become more of a movement than a hospital. An army on the front line, not cadets locked in their barracks!

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Devotional, Easter, Faith, Forgiveness, Healing

Jesus will meet you at your point of need – Mary Magdalene’s story

Posted on by David L'Herroux

I have spoken before about some of the losses our family has faced. In the immediate aftermath of a bereavement, without God’s help, it can feel as though life cannot continue without that loved one. However, thank God for His Word that sustains and holds us together during the very darkest times of our lives.

I have been trying to put myself in the shoes of the friends of Jesus: the disciples, the people who were his companions during his life on Earth. I have been wondering what they must have felt after he was executed? What was it like after Jesus was resurrected? How did they feel when they saw him again for the first time since the atrocity of his death?

Mary Magdalene was one of those friends. She was a woman with a dark past whose life had been changed forever after an encounter with Jesus. Although she must have known he was the messiah, did she experience any doubt after she witnessed his death? Did she wonder if Jesus was really coming back? Did she experience despair and grief? Even when we know the truth, in the dark experiences of our lives, it can be easy to focus on the circumstances of what we see.

Whatever she felt, whether it was hope or hopelessness, we know that on Resurrection morning, after Jesus rose from the dead, everything changed. Matthew 28 says ‘Suddenly, Jesus met them.’

This word ‘suddenly’ is very important to me personally because it reminds me that just at my point of need, just when I need him most, that is when Jesus appears.

For Mary Magdalene (and the others who saw the risen Christ), when Jesus met them, in an instant, hope and peace was restored: they could see a future. They knew they would get through this. In that moment, they experienced the resurrection for themselves.

The resurrection was not just an event in history – it was an event which brought hope to the friends of Jesus, hope to all who witnessed it, and hope for today’s world, thousands of years later.

Whatever you are going through, even if it seems like an impossible situation, the death and life of Jesus reminds us that there is a future, and that because of the resurrection, whatever life brings our way, we can have hope and peace. When Jesus meets us, everything changes.

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Forgiveness

How to have hope

Posted on by David L'Herroux

Our country has been rocked by a terrorist attack.

Although I am from France, I have lived here for more than 40 years, and my wife and I raised our family here. The UK is our home.

I was in France in November 2015 when terrorists attacked Paris. I was in the middle of an exciting week of mission at my brother’s church, and we were seeing incredible miracles, lives set free, and people commit their lives to Christ.

We were full of excitement at what God was doing, and then we heard the horrific news. Our hearts were broken, just as they are today, for the people of London, for all those who have been injured, for all those who have lost someone.   

We have seen some incredible acts of bravery, a MP who fought to save the life of an injured police officer, doctors, nurses, police and ordinary members of the public who have put their own lives at risk to help protect ours.   

We are so thankful to live in a country that is able to respond quickly and with deep compassion in the face of a tragedy.

As Christians, we sometimes wonder what to say in the face of such a terrible situation. But on the Sunday morning after the attacks in Paris, our church in France took great comfort from God’s Word in Psalm 37:

Do not fret because of those who are evil
or be envious of those who do wrong 

Be still before the Lord
and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.  

The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord;
he is their stronghold in time of trouble.
The Lord helps them and delivers them;
he delivers them from the wicked and saves them,
because they take refuge in him. 

Let us always go to God’s Word for our answers. His Word (John 1:5) says that the darkness in the world will get darker, but that darkness will never extinguish light. In fact, that light (His light) will continue to shine brighter, and the darkness CANNOT overcome it. 

That is where I get my hope.

Let’s pray with passion for our world and all those who are suffering and grieving today.   

And may God’s light, His inextinguishable light, shine ever brighter in the middle of the darkness we see.

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Devotional, Evangelism, Faith, Forgiveness, Healing, Hope

Heaven is real

Posted on by David L'Herroux

Last year, I told the story of losing our son Jamie when he was 13 months old. Our hearts were broken, and as I cried out to God and asked Him to bring Jamie back, I felt God speak into my spirit: ‘He will not come back to you, but you will go to him one day.’

I learned later that these were the words God spoke to King David after the loss of his own son. Over the years, those words have given me great hope and comfort because they remind me that there is a world beyond this one.  I believe we will see Jamie again one day.

If you have lost someone you love, I would like to encourage you to know and believe that Heaven is not a myth. Heaven is real.

The Scriptures give us quite a lot of detail about Heaven. Heaven is where God lives (Psalm 23:1) and Heaven was designed for us. God does not need a place to live. He is self-sufficient, but He made Heaven for us. God’s heart was to create a home and a family, and God loves us so much that He has adopted us into the family so that we can spend eternity with Him. But He also gave us a choice. Where we spend eternity will be determined by the choices we make in this life, whether we choose to accept the free gift of Jesus or not.

What is Heaven like? 

Jesus said that He would go to prepare a place for us (John 14:3) and in Revelation 22, we are given a beautiful picture of a place with trees and a river ‘clear as crystal’ which flows down the middle of the street. Heaven is also described as a place where God’s people will live with Him forever, and where all tears, grief, pain and death will be wiped away. It is a place where the ‘old order of things has passed away’ (Revelation 21). If you are like me, sometimes you might think: ‘Lord, it’s dreadful down here…’ But the thought of a perfect world to come with no pain gives us great hope.

Living for today

Although we look forward to eternity with great expectancy, it is still important to live with our purpose while on this Earth – to be fully present in the life we have been given. It is ok to dream and look forward to a day when we can take off our ‘suit’ of flesh and blood, but we should not forget that God has a purpose for us now.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul says that we are ambassadors of Christ. If I were a political ambassador, it would mean that I had an important purpose, but that ultimately I was the citizen of another country. The same is true when we are Christ’s ambassadors. Our appointment and purpose is from God, and we have a heavenly assignment to speak God’s heart to the country and situation we are currently in.

If you are in a difficult situation or have lost someone you love too, can I encourage you: Heaven is real. As believers, it is a place we can look forward to with expectancy. I believe that I will one day be reunited with both my son and grandson, but until that day, let’s live for the here and now.

Let’s make it our goal to share this truth, this hope, with as many people as possible, until the day God finally calls us home.

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Forgiveness, Hope

Forgiveness in the face of evil

Posted on by David L'Herroux

Last week I wrote about learning to forgive myself (by God’s grace) after our son passed away in 1988. Forgiveness can be a very powerful tool in restoring relationships (and our lives). This week, I am very pleased to hand the blog over to our family friend, Marcus Mosey, who, through a family tragedy, has also learned about the incredible power of forgiveness.

Marcus writes:

On 21st December 1988, something happened that would change our family and my life forever.

I was 16. My 19 year-old sister, Helga, had been home for just a week before Christmas and was heading back that afternoon from our home in Birmingham to the USA. We had fought like cat and dog (her being the aggressive cat!). For the first time in years, that week I had experienced a loving, caring sister. On the departure day, I didn’t want her to go back to her gap-year au pairing job in New Jersey. But I needed to do some Christmas shopping, so I headed into the city, and promised I would be home in time to say goodbye.

Later that afternoon, I returned home, having totally forgotten that my sister was due to leave for the airport at 2pm. She had gone.

Afternoon turned into evening, and I sat upstairs watching something on the old TV set. Suddenly the programme that I was watching was interrupted with a news flash. A plane had come down over a town in the Scottish Borders. I experienced a fleeting, sympathetic grief that anyone with half a heart would have in such circumstances – a deep sadness for the unknown families of those affected. I remember thinking: ‘Some people are going to have a miserable Christmas and New Year…’

Over the next hour, we found out that it was my sister’s plane, Pan Am 103, which had come down over the sleepy market town of Lockerbie. Our lives would never be the same.

In the coming days and weeks, many facts were established. Bodies strewn over the beautiful Scottish countryside were recovered, along with parts of the plane and people’s luggage. Memorial services were attended by politicians and dignitaries, private funerals and wakes took place in the US, UK, and other countries. For weeks, months, years, this event occupied front covers, columns of newspapers, and the media. Even to this day. But for me, I had to deal with the grief of losing my sister and also the fact that I didn’t keep my promise to get back from shopping before she left. I never said goodbye. I wished I had told her that I loved her and that I forgave her for the years of pain she put me through. But I didn’t. Somehow, I had to forgive myself, and also the perpetrators of this deed. So I prayed. I asked God to help me forgive.

God came.

He came. And all sense of hatred, revenge, and unforgiveness towards the perpetrators (whoever they were) just dissipated within this amazing force shield. He had us. He had me.

But I still struggled to forgive myself for not keeping my promise. Strangely, it was easier to receive God’s help to forgive others than it was to forgive myself! It was like I had this self-disappointment attached to me on a leash. It would just be there, wherever I went, even though I didn’t want it. Then, one morning a few months later, I woke up, and it was gone. I was no longer feeling that sense of shame and regret. It was just gone! I was free.

As a family, we have seen amazing things happen around the world as a result of the Lockerbie air disaster; so many great things that God has brought out of such a dark event. Many children’s lives in Asia have been transformed because of my sister’s death.

But for me, the greatest act of God is that I have not been overcome with unforgiveness and anger. Instead, I have been able to walk on from that evening before Christmas in 1988, free from bitterness, able to forgive. Most importantly, to forgive myself – because God already had.

Marcus Mosey, June 2016

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Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Forgiveness, Healing, Hope, Miracles

Learning to forgive yourself 

Posted on by David L'Herroux

I shared last week about the loss of our son Jamie and the way our lives as a family were changed forever. In the weeks and months after Jamie died, our pastor John Mosey was a wonderful friend. He helped us with the many practical arrangements, and he led Jamie’s funeral service, providing a great deal of comfort and support in a terrible time.

On Dec 21, 1988, in the same year that Jamie died, a Pan Am plane exploded over Lockerbie, killing everyone on board. John’s 19-year-old daughter Helga was one of the victims. I remember the day we received the news and I drove to John’s house. John and his family knew Helga had been on the plane, but John was on the phone in the hallway, trying to confirm some more details. ‘I am so glad you are here,’ he said. ‘You know what it feels like to lose a child.’

The circumstances were very different. Jamie had died from an unknown illness and Helga had been killed in a suspected terrorist attack. But now, in the same year, both families were facing the indescribable grief of losing a child.

News of the Lockerbie disaster was in every newspaper, and John became known at the time for saying he would forgive the people who had taken his daughter from them. Our family did not have anyone to forgive in the same way, but as the years went by and I continued to carry a great weight of grief, I wondered if I did need to forgive someone.

In April 2016, RT Kendall came to visit UCB. I spoke about his visit in another blog post, but I did not share at the time how much this visit impacted me. RT was filming a TV programme for UCB TV, but we asked if he would share something for UCB’s team leaders also.

RT spoke for a little while about forgiveness and encouraged our team to forgive those who had hurt them. He then said he wanted to pray for those who needed to forgive themselves. This was a very important moment for me personally, for although many years had passed since we had lost Jamie, I had carried a silent burden of guilt, wondering if I could have done more? Could I have spent more time with him? Could I have done things differently?

RT’s time with us and his powerful prayer was a moment of breakthrough in my life. Over the next few days, I began to realise that I felt totally free. By the power of God’s grace, I was finally released from a burden which I was never meant to carry. God had shown me that I needed to forgive myself.

I believe that God wants all of us to be totally free – to not carry guilt and shame from the past into our present lives. I thank God for sending Godly people into the ministry of UCB who can show us more about God’s wonderful healing power.

Jesus came to set the prisoners free. If we choose to accept it, we too can live in total freedom.

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Christianity, Faith, Forgiveness, Hope

When you lose the most precious thing in the world.

Posted on by David L'Herroux

In February 1988, our lives as a family were going well. We had three beautiful children, and I was moving up the ladder in my career with a retail chain.

Our three children, Natalie, Jamie, and Richard

I have always been an early bird, and my morning routine before leaving for work was to check on our youngest son Jamie, who was 13 months old. On the morning of February 9, I left for work but for some reason that day, I did not check on him. I arrived at work and just after 9am, I received an urgent phone call from a neighbour who said, ‘something has happened to Jamie, you need to come home.’

The details were not clear at that point, so I jumped into the car and drove home like I have never driven before. As I was racing along, the word ‘death’ kept coming into my head, and I screamed out to the Lord, ‘No, Lord… no, this CANNOT be true.’

As I arrived at home, the front door was open, the paramedics were working on Jamie, and I could hear the desperate cries of my wife. I still did not know what was going on, but I learned that our son Richard, who was 10, had found his brother unresponsive in his bed. The paramedics took Jamie to hospital, blue lights and sirens blazing, and my wife and I followed behind in the car. When we arrived at Casualty, we were met by the doctor and were not allowed to see Jamie while they worked on him. Eventually a doctor came out and we could see by the look on his face that it was not good news. Our beautiful son had died at 13 months old from sudden infant death syndrome.

We were numb, confused, angry and had many questions. Jamie had been for a routine check-up just a few weeks earlier and was fine. Had we done something wrong? Could this have been stopped? It felt as though we were trapped in a nightmare and we struggled to understand.

The hospital staff eventually told us that Jamie’s body was in the Chapel of Rest and asked if we wanted to see him. My wife did not feel able to go, so I went to spend some time there on my own. As I stood there, my heart cried and ached, and I said, ‘God, I KNOW you can do this, I know you can bring him back.’ As I prayed, I suddenly felt a strange tap on my shoulder. I immediately looked around, but no one was there. This happened three times, and each time, there was no one behind me. But then very clearly, I felt God speak into my spirit. I cannot say for sure if it was an audible voice, but I know God spoke:

‘He will not come back to you, but you will go to him one day.’

I learned years later that these were words spoken by King David in 2 Samuel 12:23 after he lost his own infant son. Although I did not recognise at the time where the words came from, I knew God was saying there was nothing more we could do. He had taken Jamie home. In one sense, it released me from the burden of praying for God to restore Jamie to us, but that did not stop us from feeling the desperate agony of grief.

Jamie

In the days ahead, although our lives were shattered, we tried to keep things as normal as we could for our children, Richard and Natalie. Our church family gathered around us, and our pastor, John Mosey, was a wonderful friend, supporting us through the many practical arrangements we had to make. Little did we know that John would face his own terrible family tragedy toward the end of the year, but I will talk more about that in another blog post. The church’s support was incredible, but we still had so many questions. I felt God speak to me clearly one day: Stop asking me why. Ask me what I am going to do through it. 

Two weeks later, I had been due to speak at our church. Our pastor said I did not have to do it, but I was able to share a short word on Romans 8:31: ‘If God is for us, who can be against us.’ I asked our church family to pray for us, and I also encouraged them to be as normal as they could with us. We didn’t want people to stay away or think that we did not want to see their children or their babies. We knew this would be an important part of rebuilding our lives.

Throughout all that time, I can say that I felt God was lifting me. I had to grieve, but I also had the responsibility of caring for my wife and children too. My mother gave me a copy of the famous Footprints poem, and I knew that despite our shock and grief, God was carrying us through the darkest time of our lives.

Today as a family, we live and enjoy a good life. It is a different life which will always be scarred by losing Jamie, but we are not broken. We have been through many stages of grief, and up until recently, I was struggling with many private emotions. In a future blog post, I will share more on this and how I feel God has set me free from the burden of guilt which I carried for many years.

If you are facing your own tragedy today, then if you are a believer, you can know that God is with you and will carry you through it. As believers, we are not protected from pain, and we should not con ourselves and think we can go through this life without heartache. But God can hold us together powerfully through the most terrible times of our lives and give us strength to keep going.

After a terrible loss, your life may never be the same again, but with God, it can still be a good life. He is the reason for our hope, and we know that one day we will see Jamie again.

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Evangelism, Faith, Forgiveness, Hope, Miracles

God is the God of the impossible

Posted on by David L'Herroux

Early one Friday morning over five years ago, our Company Secretary came to see me. ‘David, we have a problem,’ he said.  ‘Our cashflow is bad. We need half a million pounds.’

When you are responsible for a large organisation, this is never good news to hear. Coming from a commercial background, I knew it was quite common to operate a business out of an overdraft, but I did not feel this was the answer for UCB. I did not know what the solution was, but firstly,  I knew that we needed to pray.

When facing unexpected news, it is easy to get caught up in meetings and discussions, but at that moment, I wanted to be alone so that I could ask God for His answer. I took out my Bible and felt God prompt me to read Jeremiah 17. My eyes fell initially to Jeremiah 17:7-8.

‘But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.’

As I read this, I felt encouraged especially that we were to ‘have no worries in a year of drought’, but in my heart, I still didn’t feel fully peaceful. I felt God prompt me to read Jeremiah 17 again, but this time I needed to read the whole chapter. I have to admit that verses  4 to 6 shocked me – they were curses about goods being plundered and lives being destroyed!

I remember praying: ‘God, ‘I do not understand. First you gave us a promise and a blessing and now I am reading about a curse? What are you saying to us?’

However, as I read it again, Jeremiah 17, verse 6 suddenly came alive to me;

This is what the Lord says: ‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.’

I felt this was our answer! I knew I had a decision to make. Where should we take our strength from? Should we rely on an overdraft which came from ‘mere flesh’, or could we find the courage to trust God, believe His promise, and see what He would do?

I gathered all the UCB staff together for a time of prayer. I remember we stood in a circle in our Hanchurch building, all holding hands, and we prayed and asked God for a miracle. I told the team that I believed God wanted us to trust Him. I later wrote to our Board of Trustees and asked if they would support us in this decision, and they all agreed. Those were difficult months, but we believed God had given us a clear promise from His Word – His divine instruction manual.

That was at Easter time, and we had to wait until nearly October before we began to see the financial breakthrough in our circumstances. However, we did not ever need to use that overdraft, and we give God all the glory for seeing UCB through a very difficult time.

There have been many other challenging times since then, but prayer remains an essential everyday part of what we do. I do not believe we can function properly as a ministry unless we purposefully choose to spend time in God’s presence. It’s in His presence that (combined with His Word) we can find answers to the problems that we all face.   In God’s presence, we are able to talk openly and honestly with our Father. We can tell Him our problems, our fears and frustrations. It’s in that place that we can truly find our peace.

We continue to believe that God is the God of the impossible and He will never let us down.

David-Blog10

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Christian Media, Christian Radio, Christianity, Faith, Forgiveness, Healing, Hope, Miracles, Spiritual healing

When trouble comes, will you stay the course?

Posted on by David L'Herroux

I am very pleased to hand the blog over to my friend Bruno Kondabéka this week. Bruno and his wife Joanne are great friends of our family and are also the pastors of Chichester Family Church.

Some years ago, their son (who was then 7 years old) was struck by a terrible illness, but God did something remarkable.

It’s an incredible story of God’s power at work. Bruno will share what happened next.

Bruno writes…

My wife Joanne and I have three boys, and as pastors of a church in Chichester, our lives are often busy. About two years ago, I was preaching a sermon series on the issue of suffering. I remember asking our church, ‘When trouble comes, will you stay the course?’ We didn’t know then that soon ‘trouble’ would visit our home and put our family to the test.

It began without any warning, when one day our youngest son Samuel started to feel unwell. He had a slight fever but didn’t seem too ill, so we gave him Calpol, and he stayed home from school for a few days to recover.

Five days later, Samuel started to get visibly worse: his temperature went up, and he was complaining that his head and neck were hurting, so we rang NHS Direct who advised we take him to the emergency doctor. On Sunday, the hospital checked him over, but they felt satisfied that it was probably a virus and in time it would pass. However, by the middle of the week, Samuel was still not any better, so we took him to our GP, and that’s when things became very worrying. Samuel was very agitated that day, which was not like his usual cooperative self, and he seemed to be in pain and was very confused. The GP rang the paediatric unit at the hospital, and the consultant suggested we take him straight there.

We were greeted at the hospital by the consultant and his team, and we started to realise that this was maybe very serious indeed. Again Samuel was very agitated and confused. He had become light sensitive, so he was sedated in order to calm him down so that he could be examined and given a CT scan.

After the scan, our son’s condition deteriorated rapidly. He was finding it hard to wake up, his heart beat was erratic, and he was not responsive to anything we said to him. The results of his CT scan were passed onto the specialists in Southampton Hospital, and because they were concerned with what they saw, they arranged for Samuel to be transferred by ambulance to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit in Southampton. To stabilise him, he was put in a drug induced coma, and he was quickly taken to Intensive Care.

Samuel

After further tests, we were told Samuel had Meningoencephalitis – a very rare and potentially deadly infection on the brain, caused by mycoplasma (a cross between a virus and bacteria) which causes the brain to swell. As parents, our hearts were broken, and the tears flowed as we watched what was happening to our little boy, but we did what we could to hold on to God and to trust Him to take us through this.

I remembered that just a short time previously, I had asked our church family if they were able to ‘stay the course’ when suffering came, and now we were facing that exact situation ourselves. We felt all the emotions you could expect – we wept and we worried, but we were also encouraged by remembering words spoken over Samuel’s life when he was dedicated as a baby by our friend, Pastor Brian Downward, from Bournemouth. The words at that time were that God had a purpose for his life, and it was a good purpose. He was to be a man of God.

I was also aware that our friends in Angers, France, were holding a week of mission at their church. I lived in France for some years, and the church there had helped to sponsor me in my theology studies in South Africa. I had a phone call from David L’Herroux, who told us that the church wanted to pray for Samuel. David felt it was important that the church prayed together during one of their services, and so that night at 8.30pm at the hospital in Southampton, we connected by phone with the church in France (as David paused in the middle of his preach). We laid hands on Samuel as David prayed, and then because we were in the ICU and couldn’t make too much noise, I went outside the ward and continued to pray (with my arm outstretched toward my son’s bed), while the church prayed that God would heal Samuel. That day had been particularly hard as we watched the nurses struggling to get Samuel to wake up out of the coma – they were not succeeding. So, we were encouraged by this prayer and support, and it gave us courage to believe for a miracle.

I walked back to the ward and we continued to sit beside Samuel’s bed, and literally just 30 minutes later, we had the biggest surprise of our lives when Samuel just opened his eyes. He had been unconscious for 3 days. The nurses rushed to see him and confirmed he was conscious – they removed his breathing tube, and from that moment, he started to make a full recovery.

Samuel2

The next day, he was moved from the ICU, and 14 days later, he was discharged from the hospital. The neurosurgeon who had worked with Samuel took us to one side and said that although she was amazed at his recovery, we should also expect the worst, as there could be long term damage.

But just over two weeks later, Samuel was back at school part-time, and the following week, he went back to school full time. He will soon be celebrating his tenth birthday and has suffered no ill effects whatsoever.

Samuel3

We thank God every day for the amazing miracle he gave us for our son.

Family

David concludes…

Bruno’s story is a wonderful reminder to us that God is very much at work in the world around us. At UCB, I encourage the team to keep being expectant and believing for the impossible. We live in a world which is bound by fear, but I believe God wants to set us free in every area of our lives.  I trust Bruno’s story has encouraged you to believe for more. We serve a mighty God!

 

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