story - God Given

By: Diosdado Fernandez

    I hated my name, which means God-given, until God gave me my life back.

    I live in Cuba, and although my mother claimed to be a Christian, I grew up not believing in God. Then in 1998 I learned that I had rectal cancer. The doctors operated; then they began radiation treatments. But the treatments did more harm than good, and I was in incredible pain. Doctors gave me morphine for the pain, but I became afraid to even eat. I lost weight, and paralysis was slowly setting in. The doctors gave me little hope that I would survive.

    While I was still in the hospital, a fire in the hospital set off a severe asthma attack. I coughed so hard that I tore out my stitches and fell to the floor. When nurses rescued me, I could not breathe.

  X-rays showed that the fire had damaged my lungs, but worse, I also had lung cancer from heavy smoking over the years. Doctors operated to repair my torn stitches, but they stopped midway through surgery, thinking I was dead.

    I awoke to see a beautiful city and a bright, shining being. I felt peaceful and well and I began to talk to the beautiful being. Doctors heard me and started in disbelief, thinking I had died. They quickly completed the surgery and took me to recovery.

    Just hours after surgery I felt better than I had felt in months - years, even. I got out of bed and walked where just a day before I was paralyzed and could not walk. It was as if superhuman strength poured through my body. A hospital worker asked my son, a doctor, if I was a believer, and he told the man that my only loves in life were women, tobacco, and alcohol. Then the worker told my son I had been quoting Scripture to them, though I had never read the Bible. And when breakfast came I ate hungrily for the first time in months.

    Clearly God was working wonders, miracles in my life, though I did not yet know Him.

«back