Trusting in God’s provision

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We have a lovely girl from Gaza, Shahad, staying with us at our Jerusalem guest house as she waits for a catheterisation. She has ended up being with us for quite a bit longer than we initially were expecting and as a result, we have needed to get some more medication for her. We have a wonderful local pharmacist who is always extremely helpful and generous, but on this occasion, it was proving difficult for him to find anywhere which had this specific medicine in stock for Shahad. We tried other pharmacies, but everywhere came back with the same problem as our usual pharmacist: there seems to be a national shortage of this medicine. As there was no date in sight for when Shahad would be called back to the hospital, and the time was running out before we really, really needed the medication, I realized that we had another of what we are fondly coming to know here at Shevet as an “impossible mission.”

Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

So, as we had the task of being the last people in the hospital before the medicine would run out, here was an opportunity for me and Alena to receive the gift of faith on this day! Firstly I prayed for favor with…whoever it was who could help us. Within the next minute, I found Shahad’s cardiologist in his office, without any patient, with the door open and ready to help. He (as always) was willing to assist when I explained our situation. He even called our pharmacist to try and organize a different prescription or whatever was necessary, only to come to the same dead end; the medicine is not available in Israel at the moment. I was reminded firmly and without any doubt of the prayer which Diana my lovely friend and our head nurse last year would pray and declare every day in English and Spanish:

Nothing is impossible with God.

So, as the pharmacist called his contact in Ramallah (unsuccessfully) and I tried to contact the internal hospital pharmacy (already closed for the day), Alena and I relaxed into the task we had of waiting for one of our other children to come out of surgery. We sat outside the doors to the operating room, spoke about faith, and prayed.

 

My father is always working.

 

I had a few phone calls that day from Coby, who is our nurse in Jerusalem, and the last call brought the news that outside of any striving and struggle from us, God had provided the medicine, right at the last minute. A doctor who used to work at Sheba Hospital is now working in Hadassah Hospital, and through him it had been possible to get hold of the medicine. All the while that we had been waiting at Sheba exactly in front of us outside the OR, there was his picture on the lifts, reminding everyone to use anti bacterial hand gel, a smiling reminder to Alena and I that God our Father is sovereign over everything. We laughed so much and sent a photo of the “three” of us to Coby to share with him when she collected the medicine.

 

Praise God that we don’t have to struggle in our own strength, but everything is possible for Him. Praise God as well for good friends who encourage us to look to Jesus and have faith.