Life-threatening situations and discouraging experiences are all part of our family life mosaic – but none of these things has defeated us. The Lord enabled us to refuse to let fear, disappointments, and sicknesses defeat us.

All the family members were happy to hear that our first born was a boy and that it was a normal delivery. My wife and I had said that the child belonged to God and that although he would be our son, we would only be given the stewardship duty of raising him up for God. In our prayer, we had told that the child was on the altar, the same way Abraham had laid Isaac on the altar (Gen. 22). Perhaps the Lord was checking on us to see if we really meant that prayer. Sometimes we give things to God in prayer, but we don’t really mean it.

Although everything seemed normal with the child, the doctor suspected the child was struggling and had some breathing problem. Not only did the breathing problem persist even after a course of treatment, the child could not suck because of heavy nasal congestion. He could not swallow anything, even when he was spoon-fed. Johny, our precious baby was becoming dehydrated, and so tube-feeding was begun. Soon he began to suffer from severe chest infection. And he went through the dreadful experience of cyanosis, in which he turned blue because of breathless-ness. Oxygen was available those days only in the operating room, so the nurses had to regularly race there carrying our breathless child! We did not know whether the child would breathe again until he was handed back to us.

This happened over and over; sometimes the waiting was long because of severe congestion caused by the infection. On a number of occasions, it took a long time to revive Johny. The doctors warned us that oxygen deprivation could cause severe brain damage. Because of pharyngeal secretions, he used to get choked and cyanosed even while he cried.

When Johny turned three Sherry our second son was born. But he died in early infancy with the same kind of respiratory problems. Annie, our daughter is the third child. Although she also showed some breathing problem during the first couple of days, we received the glad news that she is a healthy normal child. But we kept in mind this fact: a healthy normal child also belongs to God. Here again we are only stewards to take care of her, and so we placed her on the altar, too. Our fourth child Ronnie also suffered from the same illness as his two brothers.

Most of us, including the doctors, were under the impression that the boys would outgrow their illness. The only thing we really had to do was to administer medication every time Johny and Ronnie had an infection or other major medical difficulty. As Johny turned eleven years old, we noticed that when he had a chest infection, he often became severely dehydrated from diarrhea and vomiting. He was growing weak and losing weight. Their illness was finally diagnosed at this stage when Johny was eleven and Ronnie was five.

The child specialist explained the details of this rare illness called Cystic Fibrosis. He stated that there is no known cure for this condition. All we could do was treat the symptoms as they occurred. One specialist explained it to me this way: "assume that something is wrong with a building. If it is just some of the walls, they can be replaced. But think of the difficulty if every brick used for the building will have to be replaced! It is easier to demolish the building and build a new one."

Demolish the building! I knew we could not do that with my dear children. So I began to collect any literature I could find about cystic fibrosis. While scanning through these research papers, my attention was drawn to a passage in the Bible: "For I can do everything God asks me to with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and power" (Phil. 4:13, TLB). I thought about what it was saying. Jesus Christ never ceases to make me able! So I can not only do everything God asks me to do, but I also can bear all things God asks me to bear. When the specialists say there is no hope for children with cystic fibrosis and that the children die soon, I can bear all such things because of the One who never ceases to make me able.

We have been facing life and death struggle for over 32 years. The first death experience was that of our second son Sherry in 1972. During the period November 1998 to September 1999, we had to face a series of death experiences in the family. My wife Elizabeth struggled hard for over 28 years since the birth of our first child due to his threatening illness. She became ill due to exhaustion and stress. While I was taking care of her in the hospital those days, my father had a severe heart attack, and came home suffering a loss of memory. To make matters worse, he fell down while going to bed, and fractured his pelvic bone. My mother was looking after him with the help of a nurse. Curious to say, my mother suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died. This happened a few weeks after my wife had died. Then my father also died in another interval of two months. Meanwhile our younger son Ronnie was showing signs of deterioration, especially with his lung condition, and he also died five months after my wife’s death.

The above mentioned period seemed the most difficult days for us to bear. We were very much grieved, but not disappointed. The response of the children was something like this: "… there can be storms of many kinds while the vessel is in the ocean, but we need not be disappointed as we are so sure of the One Who steers the vessel." So, the illness, waiting at the hospitals, uncertain moments and death experiences did not make us sink!

We never imagined we would go through these experiences. But God has delivered us in the midst of our troubles. God not only delivers us in the troubles, but He also delivers us from the troubles. Sometimes there may not be any solution to the problem we face. We may not be able to do anything when the wind blows in different directions. But we learned that we can adjust the sails, and trust our Lord to take full advantage of the direction it blows. Moreover, our trials and distressing experiences were used by God to mould our character.