June 21 – God’s Mysterious Ways
Isaiah 55: 8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.
God is our healer. Here is an astounding testimony of a lady, Emalet Benitha Manasseh grew up in Kanyakumari, in South India. They were a happy family, she used to sing in the church and even for many public occasions, danced, painted, played the piano, and excelled in art and craft so overall, her childhood was a very happy exciting one with wonderful memories. They moved to Hosur, Tamil Nadu, when she was 18. One day she suddenly had a strange spell where she fainted. Finally, they found out she had epilepsy and took her for treatment. She went from 40 kg up to 80 kg! When she was 20, she contracted measles twice, swollen and shapeless from head to toe where people turned away when they saw her. Her life was monitored and she was under heavy medications which had side effects. She started telling her mother to pray to Jesus and ask Him to kill her as He was not healing her. After 40 days, she got another serious illness – jaundice! In fact, she got jaundice twice and then after recovering from that, got chickenpox! Her legs and calves and below the knees were cracked and bleeding, and was in excruciating pain all the time. They found out she had a very serious blood anemia called sickle cell anemia.
In St. Martha’s Hospital, in Bangalore, they initially did not accept her as her hemoglobin was far too low. The doctors gave up on her, telling her parents to take her home. Her parents prayed and did not give up. Her body started rejecting the injections and then after one shot, she passed away. Crying, the nurses covered her with white sheet about to be wheeled away to the mortuary.Dr. Santosh came back again suddenly said “I want to try and revive her again!” He prayed shortly and started resuscitation and after about 3 minutes, she started to breath. This was a wonderful miracle witnessed by the people present in the hospital.
Though she started to heal, they found out she had 22 areas of calcification in her brain. The doctor told her there was a 99% she would never be cured, but 1% that she may be cured. She fell into a depression because she felt rejected twice by broken engagements due to her health and felt she was a burden to her parents. Her first attempt at suicide failed so she planned another one. One Sunday, she planned to take all her medicines after church. That morning, Mohan C. Lazarus was speaking on TV and he seemed to look at her and said clearly and loudly “Dear sister, suicide is not a final answer, don’t take your life!” He repeated it 3-4 times. Crying, together with her loving parents, she dedicated her life to God fully for the first time. A few years later, she did get married to Manasseh William, who was a musician and singer. They have a daughter, Elvina Carlin, ! Benitha also runs a prekindergarten school.
Sometimes it seems we go through endless troubles. As we could see, Benitha’s faith at that time was failing her, but God is faithful even when we are weak. The prayers of her people held her up too. We need others to pray for us too in hard times. Overall, God is above all things. It was His will to save, heal, redeem and bless Benitha’s life and today, she is a blessing to thousands.
Rita
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