Better Than Striking the Lottery

Sunday, 13th April 2008

Those of you who've been following my blog for more than a year would have come across an earlier entry about how the devil had attacked my family, marriage and career.

Well, He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world (1 Jn 4:4), and no weapon formed against us can prosper (Isa 54:17). Amen?

God restored my marriage in 2003 by leading us to sign up for the "Married for Life" course, where we learnt the biblical perspective of what a marriage should be -- like the relationship between Christ and the church.

He restored my career in 2005. I had sent out more than 300 job applications and was contemplating becoming a taxi driver, when God led me to a job where I initially started out as a temp staff but eventually ended up getting 5 increments in the space of 3 years and the 2 biggest bonuses in my entire career. Just 12 days ago, I moved on to a job which allows me to tithe 20% more. This Canadian company is doing extremely well and is not affected by the impending recession in USA nor the inflation in Asia.

One area that we have continued to believe God for restoration is that of my family. My 11-year old son had been on peritoneal dialysis since he was 3 years old. We have been praying for him daily, asking the Lord to restore the function of his kidneys. Well, the answer to our prayers arrived 3 days ago...

At 7.36am on 10th April, I received a phone call from the transplant coordinator informing me that a kidney had become available, and Mark was the most suitable recipient! It was only the 8th working day into my new job and I had a meeting with my CFO at 9am followed by a conference call with Malaysia and Hongkong at 10am.

I quickly sent an email to my 2 bosses (the MD and CFO) from my Blackberry, requesting for urgent leave, telling them my son had to go for emergency surgery. They were very kind, telling me that family matters took precedence and work could wait. I was so overwhelmed with gratitude, because it was God who had granted me favour with them. They even allowed me to consider the leave as medical rather than no-pay leave (employees on probation are not entitled to annual leave).

To cut a long story short, my wife and I took him out of school at about 9.15am and brought him to the hospital to do a battery of tests.

We were told that it was like striking the lottery -- the chances of getting a suitable kidney was one in several hundred thousand.

As I pondered over this, I realise that it was better than striking the lottery. God's timing is always perfect and He had arranged for Mark to be at the right place at the right time to receive that kidney.

At 3.15pm, he was wheeled into the operating theatre for the transplant operation.

The 4-hour operation was a great success, and within half an hour, his new kidney had started to produce urine -- lots of it in fact.

Since then, God has been granting him a speedy recovery. He was out of ICU in just 2 days and cannot wait to be up and about, doing things which he previously could not, such as swimming and going for long holidays.

I would like those of you who have been faithfully praying for our son. Indeed, he is going to live the abundant life that Jesus has come to give all of us. Hallelujah and praise the Lord!