Thank God

We received this email from Philip’s brother’s wife this morning with the subject ‘Thank God.’ It describes the days leading up to her husbands surgery and how thankful they are to the Lord.

We thank God for helping us go through this difficult time. We also thank all of you who supported us in prayer and for your encouragement.

Two weeks back Surendar had severe pain in his abdomen, and the pain was spreading to the chest area, his back and so on. He was treating himself with Gelusil (antacid), soda, garlic pearls etc, because he had eaten a heavy meal for lunch that day and thought that the pain was some gastric pain due to indigestion. It was a Saturday and nephew Naveen was there after our weekly Bible study and offered to take him to Vadamalaiyan Hospital. He refused saying that the pain will go away after sometime. So Naveen went home.

Even after midnight, the pain did not subside.

Father GB’s song: Sabaiyum Peruganum

Song composed by Gnana Bhaktamitran.

[My father, feeling that Tamil hymns and lyrics, generally, do not have the depth that English hymns have, has for his church hymnal, identified some good hymns, translated many hymns and choruses from English, and composed some lyrics. He has recorded the accompaniment for all the songs in the hymnal, and these are available in MP3 format. I will try to showcase some of them in this blog from time to time. All recordings have been done at home using very simple equipment. These songs may not be copied without permission.]

Here is a recording of the song Sabaiyum Peruganum sung by Prathiba Surendar and Amala George (members of EBA in Madurai) and accompanied by GB himself.

Mental Illness and Prayer

My previous post was about a woman we called Flower Queen who probably was schizophrenic. I knew another person who was very close to me, and a believer, who had schizophrenia. Whenever the person stopped taking the prescribed medication, after a few weeks, the voices were back, and we would sometimes have some bad episodes. We would then find some way of motivating the person to take the medicines, and when that was accomplished, relief was almost instantaneous because the person came back to us from the terrifying world of insanity in a matter of hours. The times when the person refused to take medication are similar to the stuff that nightmares are made of. I know that there is a chemical imbalance or something biological that is behind the condition.

Pastor John MacArthur has been criticised for his opinion about most so-called mental illnesses actually being results of sin and treatable by prayer and repentance. We have been reading his books for 20 years now, he has won over our confidence many times over, and I do not think he would have expressed his opinion on this matter without much thought.

I do not know how exactly to reconcile his opinion with my experience, and my little brain cannot begin to understand all the ramifications of either theology or medicine.

Marriage—Honour the weaker vessel and joint heir

Dear Young People,

I wonder, where you are as you are reading this. I hope you are not hanging precariously from a tree or waiting at a bus stop for a bus. If you are at home, please do make sure that you have a Bible with you to look up the references.

We learnt that husbands are the leaders in the home. So who gives honor to whom? It goes without saying that the wife should honor her husband. This is also traditionally expected of wives in our country, isn’t it? But is this all that the Bible has to say about honouring in marriage?.