God Is Our Refuge

Fui Khin Wong—Singapore

Sis. Wong Fui Khin was born in Sabah, East Malaysia into a family of True Jesus Church believers. Her paternal grandmother, together with her siblings and her son (Sis. Wong’s father), were baptized into the church in the late 1920s. Besides enjoying the grace of salvation, Sis. Wong has experienced abundant blessings from the Lord. She shares two of these with us.

PUSHED TO SAFETY

In the 1960s, I was a secondary school student in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. My family lived in a place called Signal Hill, which is about a twenty-minute walk from Kota Kinabalu town center. Back then, there were only a few rickety buses, which operated few and far in between. School for us began at 8:15 a.m. in the morning, and if we missed the 7:30 to 7:45 a.m. bus, we would definitely be late for school and most probably be punished. So every day, my younger sister and I would rush to the main bus station to catch the bus to school.

One fine morning, we were hurrying to the bus station as usual. We had to cross a busy road in order to get to the bus station. My sister who was ahead of me had already crossed the road. In my haste to catch up with her, I dashed across the road without checking whether the road was clear. Only halfway across the road did I realized that a car was speeding towards me. I was so shocked, I did not know how to react. I was rooted to the spot and my legs felt as if they had turned to jelly. It did not even occur to me to run. All I could remember was to say, “Hallelujah, hallelujah!”

Suddenly, I felt a force shoving me right over and onto the pavement on the other side of the road. After I had landed there, I looked back, just in time to see the car whiz past me. The driver of the car turned and looked at me with his eyes and mouth wide open in shock. He must have thought that I was a ghost because I had moved from the middle of the road onto the pavement in an instant.

Indeed, we worship a faithful Lord who rescues us in times of danger. I cannot imagine what would have happened, had He not stretched out His hand to save me. Thank God for His grace and mercy!

INTERNAL AND INTENSIVE BLEEDING STOPPED

By the 1970s, I was married and staying in another town in Sabah, Malaysia, called Tawau. My second son, Guo Hwa, suffers from hemophilia, a hereditary blood disease. Human blood consists of red blood cells, white blood cells, and blood plasma. Within blood plasma, there is something known as factor VIII, which helps the blood to clot when we hurt ourselves so that we do not continue to bleed. To function normally, a person would need to have between 50 to 100 percent of factor VIII. Hemophiliacs have very little of this clotting factor in their blood. In particular, Guo Hua has a mere 0.5 percent of factor VIII. The slightest knock or cut will cause him to bleed. Internal bleeding would be especially dangerous for him. In addition, he could suffer spontaneous bleeding.

Guo Hua was diagnosed with this illness in Singapore when he was just a few months old. We went to Singapore to have him checked because back then, there were no medical facilities in Sabah to diagnose his sickness. The usual treatment for hemophiliacs was to give them a transfusion of blood plasma extract or a factor VIII precipitate injection. Unfortunately, these were not available in Sabah at that time. So whenever Guo Hua had a bleed, we would let him rest for a few days; the bleeding usually settled and he would recover.

When Guo Hua was two years old, he bumped into a cupboard in the house. He hurt his left temple where there are big blood vessels. While we did pray for him, we did not pay particular attention, thinking that the bleeding would stop after a few days as it usually did. However, on that occasion, after two days, the bleeding intensified. Both his eyes were affected and he could not see. He began to drift in and out of consciousness.

We immediately took him to the hospital. The doctor who attended to him told us there was internal bleeding into one-third of his brain, and that there was very severe bleeding into both his eyes. The doctor commented, “Mrs. Chong, I am no God.” In fact, he repeated himself, “I am no God, I am no God, why did you bring your son to me in such a condition? You know about your son’s illness. Why did you not bring him to me immediately after the accident? It is too late now.”

I knew the doctor was trying to tell me there was no hope for Guo Hua. Although the doctor said he would give Guo Hua regular transfusions of fresh blood, the doctor also hinted that he thought such transfusions useless, and he warned us of the possibility of brain damage.

At that moment, I could only pray silently, saying, “Lord, if it is Your will to take my son, I will accept it. May it be done according to Your will.” I entrusted everything to God, resigning myself to the fact that the Lord might take my son from us. In fact, I reminded myself that we would definitely meet again in our Lord’s heavenly kingdom.

After my prayer, I felt a great peace and calm. Words cannot describe this feeling of serenity within me. It was as if a whole burden had been removed from me. Thank God for His mercy and grace!

We were very touched when many of our brethren and family members gathered in the church especially to pray for Guo Hua. With their loving intercession and God’s wondrous grace, he miraculously recovered within one week.

On Guo Hua’s third day in the hospital, an eye specialist who had come from Kota Kinabalu examined him. He told me that due to the heavy bleeding into the eyes, the weight of the bleeding would cause the eyeballs to burst, and Guo Hua may become blind. However, by the gracious mercy of our Lord Jesus, Guo Hua neither suffered any brain damage nor became blind.

Praise the Lord for His mercy—the two-year-old who hurt himself so seriously is now in his late thirties. All of us are living on borrowed time from the Lord Jesus. But Guo Hua appreciates this even more keenly. For him, every new day is additional grace from the Lord Jesus.

A VERY PRESENT HELP

No words will ever suffice to express our deep gratitude to Jesus for His mercies upon us. There is no way I can ever repay the Lord for the wonderful grace and love He has continually showered on my family and me. He saved me from certain death, He preserved my son.

As the Psalmist says in Psalms 46:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

 

May all glory be given to the Lord Jesus. Hallelujah.