Stories of real faith. Helana Olivier
and for His Will working in my life, ever reminding myself never to shut the door on my past where I lived a life of destruction and darkness.
Faith without work is dead. I am passionate about sharing my story of hope with others and am willing to help others suffering with addictions.
Today I’m living and not just existing.“Praise be to God”!
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Please
Ria Mills
When God is your first choice all other choices become easier.
The rest will follow automatically.
When one has been through a great trial or when something unbelievably painful has happened in your life, something exceptionally traumatic, people often ask questions along the following lines:
What choices did you make at this juncture in your life?
How have these choices influenced your life thus far?
What challenges did you experience after you made your choice? and
In your opinion, what would the consequences have been had you chosen an opposite direction?
My answer to most of these questions is simple: I really don’t know, because most of these choices were probably made for me by my Creator, who knew what was best for me. He took over and made decisions on my behalf when I was too bewildered to make any choices of my own.
The consequences, had I chosen a different direction? I would have sunk; I would have perished, I would have drowned in despair.
This is not really my story. I am not the main character in this tale. The main characters are my son, particularly, but also my husband. They play the lead roles. I am merely sharing my emotions on what happened to them.
Sometimes one is – fortunately or otherwise – not afforded the opportunity to make some of the very greatest choices in life oneself. As a human being, you are merely allowed to make the other choices in given circumstances, because the Great Master Himself has decided what will happen to you. He gives you the space to make smaller or bigger decisions in relation to His big decision. My humble experience is that He is constantly there to take over when you are no longer able to do anything and can only ask: please please please ... That was how I experienced my part of the story.
This little tale of “choices in my life” doesn’t begin at the very beginning. It begins about 10 years ago, or to be precise, nine years and ten months ago.
My choices before then were so easy. I grew up in a home where I knew and believed from early childhood that there was a Creator who was always there for those who believed. My primary and high school years were also characterised by Christian education. It was always easy. You could commit your wishes, hopes and concerns to God and He would provide – it was never an issue! Everything would be fine – and usually was.
When I had my own family, all choices still remained easy; again everything went smoothly. Our children achieved well in whatever they did; sometimes even above average.
My husband cared well for us and gave us much love. Again, choices were straightforward. It was easy to believe in God’s grace and mercy. We were never confronted with serious choices that would have been life-changing or had any radical effect on our beliefs.
From time to time I did read about important choices and decisions in the Bible – important earthly decisions related to material, faith or life-changing issues. I would perhaps consider them for a minute or two, reflect on them for while – and then forget about them again.
I read about St Peter’s choice to deny his relationship with Jesus. I read of Jonah’s decision to free and rather brave the dangers of the sea. I read about Moses who decided to strike the rock instead of just touching it with his staff ... and his senseless decision to fashion a golden calf. I read about Judas’ decision to betray Jesus. I even judged these people in my mind, because my own choices were never made in times of total despair; of feeling totally overwhelmed by circumstances! My life knew no despair! And my choices, as a result, were very easy.
When I read about Abraham, who had to decide whether to sacrifice his son, I would quickly turn the page. What a terrifying, superhuman and unthinkable choice to make! Mary’s choices after Jesus’ crucifixion filled me with admiration and awe. Because my greatest fear, as long as I can remember, was – and still is – that of losing a child. There has been no greater fear in my life.
One terrifying, unthinkable day, a choice had to be made. There wasn’t a moment’s doubt in my mind ... My choice was for life, irrespective of the future – because I knew that God had no limits. That He was not bound by time, and that He would also be there in future, regardless.
On 8 December 2000, my son, at the time a general practitioner in a small rural hospital on the border with Swaziland, was involved in an accident. He fell asleep at the wheel on the way home from the hospital. He sustained a neck injury, but – thank God – there was no damage to the spinal cord – he was not going to be paralysed!
The day after the accident, he was taken to theatre for surgery to stabilise the neck fracture. During or right after the operation, a blood clot lodged in the pons, a part of the brain stem. My child had a stroke. He was 26 years old and in real, serious danger of his life – and stayed there for months!
People sometimes report that everything feels “unreal” at a time like this, like a movie playing in front of their eyes. This was not my experience. Not a single moment felt mercifully unreal or dreamlike; every second was brutal, frightening, true, genuine terrifying! All I could pray, over and over and over, was the insignificant little word “please”. I kept repeating it, over and over – and waited and knew that a God Almighty had to and would make the choice. There was too much and too little I wanted to ask and pray. Besides, I didn’t know exactly what to ask since I really had no idea of the prognosis and consequences of a blood clot in the pons. The only choice I had in my ignorance – and exercised – was to trust the God over Life and Death with the word “please”.
Another, probably naïve, choice was to shift into an Old Testament mode immediately after the accident. I, who had never in my life been confronted by such a terrifying choice, tried to negotiate with God. “If I were never ever in my life again to do or say this thing or the next (or conversely if I were to do or say something), would you then please let my child live?” What could I offer or give up that would be of enough value to pay for the life of my child? I was more idiotic than Jonah, Peter and Moses together!
It’s strange. At times I would recall with sharp clarity some graphic images from a film I was working on at the time. The theme: How the earth was born. How everything had come into existence, according to the experts. I remembered the depiction of the mighty powers and explosions that helped form the earth and sea ... that tore continents apart and shifted the sea ... and every time prayed, stricken with fear, to get my child back, I remembered about an ordinary person’s depiction of the all-might and power of an almighty God. And then I knew that He, who could do that, could just give a single thought to my child and he would be well – he would walk and talk and live.
When everything collapsed around me, I remembered, through a movie created by humans, how He could transform indescribable chaos into order that surpassed human understanding. “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God brooded over the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light.” Strangely, this particular image kept on reappearing in my thoughts.
There was one very short passage in the New Testament that I read over and over – like an echo among cliff faces the end of which one cannot see – and repeated it in my mind. I held on to these few words above everything else.
Strangely, it wasn’t the part where Jairus’ daughter was raised from the dead. Neither was it the story of Lazarus or the one of the man whose son was healed when Jesus drove out the demons. It was none of the wonderful stories of miracles around sick people. I