By Dan Stephens, MD. TEAM Horizons July 1994

Each time God gives you a blesing, you have to build a little monument to it. Then, when you're surrounded by floods of despair and frustration, you can see those monuments standing above the flood waters and remember those blessings.

I'm a doctor at Karanda Mission Hospital in Zimbabwe. When I walk the wards of the hospital, I see about one-third of our patients suffering from AIDS.

Of those dying from AIDS we have babies. We have 15 year-old girls who were just beginning their lives. We have grandmothers 75 and 80 years old. We have 4 year-olds and all ages in between. All of them are dying.

I struggle for months over a little baby, thinking perhaps it has AIDS, maybe malnutrition. I don't know. The child dies and the test comes back. It's AIDS. The father has it and the mother has it - the infection at least.

Sometimes I'm called to the hospital three or four times in one day about a baby who I know is going to die. I think, "Don't call me anymore... the baby is going to die. It's bad enough having to see the baby... just leave me alone... but they call me back again."

On the way to the hospital, I say, "God if it's your will, you can heal that baby. I know you can. Just show me one time that you're going to heal that baby." The infant dies a few hours later and I say, "Well, I knew it."

You really get discouraged if you think about what you would do if you were God. That's when you have to remember that God never asks you to understand Him. He asks you to trust Him. 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him; and He wil make your paths straight." (Proverbs 3:5-6, NIV)

I've known these verses since I was a child. The message is so obvious, but I hardly ever think about it. God doesn't expect me to understand Him, and I shouldn't try to. I know this much: God does use the diagnosis of AIDS to bring many to Himself.

But mostly I just keep my eyes on those monuments standing above the floodwaters.

Organizations related to this story: TEAM | The Evangelical Alliance Mission , TEAM

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