Josie was in a wheelchair the day she came to open the door to me. She was a thirty-three year old Italian lady who lived with her mum and forty-three year old sister. It was not readily apparent why she was in the chair but it certainly looked as though this was a permanent situation for her. She told me that they were a Roman Catholic family, but she said she and her sister had, “lots of questions about God, would you like to come in?” The Spirit of God was with Josie most definitely. Otherwise that invitation would not have been given.
Upon entering the living room, the first person I saw was her mother preparing food in the kitchen. She smiled and greeted me with limited English. Then I looked to see another lady in a wheelchair. She introduced herself as Josie’s sister, Grace. Once again the wheelchair looked to be a permanent situation, but for a more obvious reason. I could see Grace was very limited in her movements and she told me that it was a result of multiple sclerosis.
Grace said, “I was walking along the path one day and I fell over and I couldn’t get up.” Incredibly, the same thing happened to Josie a few years later – almost a duplicate event. She too had MS. I could not help but think this was a family attacked by demonic influences and was glad for the opportunity to answer their questions about God. Both ladies were hungry for knowledge of God. In answer to a question of what God was like, I told them He is exactly like Jesus.
Grace said, “I hope not.” There’s only one reason why a person would say that and it is because of faulty concepts of the Lord. I asked her what her concepts of Christ were and when she told me, I too said, “I hope not.” Basically both ladies saw Jesus as someone beyond personal reach, with access being unavailable unless done through religious intermediaries, coupled with constant fulfillment of religious duties and obligations. They were ignorant of the true nature of God, as a result of equal ignorance of His written word, the Bible.
To solve this dilemma both ladies agreed to sit with me and undertake a series of biblical studies which I offered to do with them on a weekly basis. The first study I chose was, “Christianity Explained” (see www.christianityexplained.com). This is an excellent, “…… six-unit presentation of the gospel which aims to fulfill this objective of teaching the fundamentals of the Christian faith. The course is based around the Gospel of Mark, which is chosen for its simplicity. The underlying assumption is that the enquirer knows virtually nothing about Jesus and the Bible.”
After completing the first two lessons, Josie and Grace had a solid insight into the true Lord Jesus Christ and both expressed a desire for true forgiveness of sin and for an on-going personal relationship with Him as Saviour and Lord. I made it my immediate business to accommodate their desires. When we finished praying they knew the Lord was much more than a religious figure of their imagination, depicted from some church stained-glass window.
Both ladies missed such a lot from life. They said their father did not like living in Australia, so one day years ago, he told them he was going back to live in his native Italy. The other family members were rather distant as result of their predicament, friends were few and far between, nobody visited them from their church and if it wasn’t for local council and MS nursing, it would simply be the three of them left to fend for themselves. Because of this, I was highly motivated to help them develop their friendship with the Lord – the One who would never leave them.
I explained to Josie and Grace that the only way that they could develop this friendship was through prayer and the reading and studying of the Scriptures. Both expressed their delight in discovering that God’s mind was never to be found by slavish obedience to man’s religious doctrines, rules and other countless expectations. Whatever troubles these two people had – and they had plenty – they knew by experience of the Lord’s living reality, that the truth was setting them free, regardless of their physical entrapment.
Grace’s reading ability was little above that of a young child, but not so, her understanding of what she read, from the Bible. God made it His business to enable her to grasp that which He deemed relevant for her, as He did for Josie who could read quite well. I can still see them laughing, as some apparent Scriptural “stumbling block” suddenly became clear for them. Human cleverness and sophistication will always be a stumbling block to God’s reality, but that was never a concern for those ladies. They never had any and never would.
A little over a year from the time of our first meeting, Josie and Grace’s mother was diagnosed with liver cancer and became weak with weight loss rather quickly. Language barriers between us limited our conversations, but she knew I was praying for her. I think she was more concerned for her daughters than herself, because the home was to be sold upon her death. Other family members demanded such. This concerned both daughters as well, but they also knew that God’s promises for them would come into action.
In the midst of all this they told me they were troubled by the MS Society who were demanding money from them. They said they had none to donate but apparently this was not believed, so the pressure was on. They were comforted by my counsel that, “God is in charge. Whatever the problems, He knows already and will sort through them.” Twelve weeks from the diagnosis of liver cancer, their mother was shifted to a hospice to await her death.
Family compassion was nowhere to be sighted with another sister and two uncles at this time either. I was told they wanted the furniture, and that the house was to be sold and, “you girls will have to look elsewhere to live.” Their mother died within a few days of leaving her home and her funeral service was one of the most depressing I have ever attended. The Bible tells us that the gospel of Jesus Christ is a good news message offering hope, which means, “assurance.”
Apart from Josie, Grace and myself there was absolutely no evidence of that truth to be found, either in the words and singing of the service, or in any of the people. There was much evidence of religious bondage, however. Five weeks after the funeral they told me they needed $12,000 to meet MS payments for the nurses. That kind of money was foreign to them so again we got together and put it to prayer.
Around the same time both ladies saw God’s hand working. Josie was laughing as she told me their other sister wanted to get rid of them so the house could be sold, “but she’s gone home to England. I prayed to Jesus, she’s gone and we’re still here!” Their difficulties seemed to come in waves and their faith wavered, as it does to us all from time to time, but they were a very teachable couple, expressing the childlike faith that Jesus encourages us all to express. Such faith paid its dividends. The MS financial problem went away.
Four months after the funeral of her mother, Grace died. It was rather sudden. Josie rang to inform me that she was taken to hospital and was not expected to come out. She died at one forty-five the following morning. Grace had a little dog that loved to bark, letting us know that he was around. She had him for eight years. That little dog died on the same day, just a few hours after her death.
Josie was naturally upset about her sister’s death but agreed it was much easier to grieve with the Lord Jesus than without Him. Once again we were to witness a funeral service which offered no hope for the living, no assurance, no nothing – except hopelessness and depression. Clearly, that is the price one pays when their faith is placed in a political, institutional religious system, rather than the Author and Finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ.
Just a couple of days later Josie was about to ring me when I knocked on the door. She said she was feeling guilty about the way she treated Grace sometimes. I used the occasion to explain the promises of the Lord for times such as hers, which was grief, and told her that Jesus never makes us feel guilty. When a person surrenders his or her life to Christ and confesses Him to be Lord, then those feelings of guilt come from His and our adversary, the devil.
Six months later Josie did have to shift out of her home. I encouraged her to see it as the blessing from God for a new beginning. It would no longer be practical for her to stay there on her own. The local council gave excellent assistance in relocating her to a smaller place, one that was fully equipped for people with disabilities such as hers, giving her in fact, a little more independence.
The downside was that her new home was in another suburb close by, but not in the area that I was ministering. I helped her settle in and she became very happy with what she saw as provisions from her Lord. I made a couple of phone calls inquiring as to her well-being, but I knew that I was no longer to be a link in God’s chain for Josie’s on-going ministerial needs. “A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.” Psalm 68:5-6.