FaithStoriesOnline.com

Stories of Faith for Inspiration and Proof that God can be Trusted Completely

Friends and family called him Phil; business associates called him Bill. He was a brilliant older gentleman, highly esteemed in the world of metallurgy. He had helped NASA with a rocket welding problem and made the final welds at top of the famous Saint Louis Gateway Arch. I had the honor of being both his friend and business associate…so I called him Phil-Bill.

On long business trips together he shared stories with me about his life. He was a survivor of multiple car crashes and other tragedies. In every instance, he would always point out how God had protected him because in the natural realm, he really should have been killed.  One of his stories has stayed with me over the years—perhaps because it illustrates the simplicity of his faith.

As a young salesman getting established, Phil-Bill traveled a lot. Occasionally, he barely had enough money to get from one place to the next, hoping for a sale. Such was the case one lonely afternoon. He had only enough to pay for his stay at the hotel but not enough to buy food. He sat there on his bed, lonely, hungry and a bit despairing.

These were times long ago, and the hotel room had a rickety old bed, noisy springs, hardwood flooring, and a vent above the door frame that slanted into the room. Turning to the Lord, Phil-Bill got on his knees beside the bed.

“Dear Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you that I’m yours, but Father, I am out of money and I’m really hungry.  And …”

His prayer broke off at a loud THUMP right beside his head!  He opened his eyes, and just a few inches away lay a brown paper bag.

Phil-Bill, leaning forward, opened the bag to find a sandwich with an apple. Dumbstruck, he stared at the food. Closing his eyes, and with a smile, he said, “Thank you, Father!”

I remember him telling me it was an excellent sandwich! Later, he found out what happened.  Three gentlemen were standing near his door discussing their lunch plans.  One had a bag lunch; the other two didn’t.  After deciding to go to a restaurant, the man with the lunch just tossed it up through the open vent above Phil-Bill’s door.

Once again, God had taken care of him. He was always telling me that God was faithful, that He was reliable, and could be trusted completely. Phil-Bill lived that simple faith in his life, which was so clearly illustrated by his simple hungry prayer that was answered with a THUMP by his head.

“…for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!”     –Matthew 6:8 (NLT)

Copyright © 2012 by William D. (Nick) Nichols

Passing by my youngest daughter, Brittany, lying on the couch, I said, “You look funny.  I mean not funny, funny, as in Ha, Ha, clown funny, but the yucky funny kind of funny.”

With her eyes closed she said, “Poppy!!”

“Ok,” I said, “So what’s wrong?”

Holding her stomach and with a grimace she said, “I’m dizzy and can’t stand up.”

I responded, “You mean you can’t stand up as in vertical, upright, perpendicular to the floor, 180-degrees straight up, stand up kind of standing up?”

“Poppyyyyyyyy STOP!!  I’m really sick!”

“Ok, ok,” I said, and that was the beginning of many months of my dizzy daughter’s dizzy spells.

At first, we thought it might be the flu or cold kind of thing because she also felt sick to her stomach, and it’s always so easy to think it’s just the latest thing that’s “going around,” but as the weeks followed, the periodic dizzy spells continued.   A trip to the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong, so he suggested we keep an eye on her to see if anything else developed.  Sometimes she would go for days without a problem, and then some days the dizzy spells were so bad it was impossible for her to attend school—it’s hard to go to school when you can’t even stand up!

After missing an excessive number of days of school, back to the doctor she went, but the doctor still had no explanation and, unfortunately, no remedy.  This went on for about a full year when finally, much to our relief, we found a doctor that figured out the problem—Brittany had the dizzy symptoms of Meniere’s (pronounced “men-yairs”) disease.  The doctor gave her a prescription, but our hopes that the medication would be the solution were dashed when it ended up making her even more sick!

During this whole ordeal, my wife and I had been praying and asking the Lord Jesus for wisdom about what to do or to outright heal Brittany.  Now that she was having a problem with the medication, our prayers intensified!  We were thankful Brittany made it through the school year, and we were so grateful for the patience and understanding of her teachers throughout the months of her unavoidable absences, but questions raced through our minds—questions like, “How long can this go on?” “What about the next school year?”

While these unspoken questions caused us concern, summer was just around the corner, and we had an opportunity to go to Nicaragua as a family on a missions trip to help build a church—but what about Brittany?  “Should we take her?” “Should we cancel altogether?”  After praying, we decided to move forward and trust the Lord for Brittany’s condition and go ahead with our original plans to go to Nicaragua.

On the flight down to Nicaragua, I ended up sitting next to a medical doctor.  He was a nice guy and a bit chatty and was headed to a medical conference in Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua, where he would be speaking.  During the flight, he pulled out his laptop and started looking at a PowerPoint presentation, which was about healthy and diseased tissue in the human body.  I explained that I was a biologist and asked if he would mind if I read his PowerPoint as he reviewed it.

He answered, “Sure . . . only this is an old computer and the battery may die at any time.”

I said, “No problem,” and thanked him for letting me read along.

The first presentation he was reviewing was fairly long, but one I found rather interesting.  Then he fired up his next PowerPoint, and my mouth dropped open in disbelief.  It was titled, “Meniere’s Disease”!!  EXACTLY what Brittany had! With rapt attention, I carefully read every slide.

The presentation went through the history of Meniere’s disease, the symptoms and causes.  Then his slideshow started covering treatments, including a list of medications that had proven helpful as well as a list of side effects that might occur.  If that approach was unsuccessful for the patient, then surgery was the next step.  A series of slides followed that described the various surgical approaches.

The next slide seemed to be added as an afterthought and was labeled “Nonconventional Approaches.”  Under the title the word SALT jumped out at me.  The slide stated that because Meniere’s was caused by swelling in the inner ear, some patients may find relief from a reduced salt diet.  However, there had been no clinical testing to prove this approach.  I thought to myself after reading that, “I wonder if daughter Brittany has been a bit on the salty side?”

The moment I finished reading the part about the salt, his screen went blank—as his computer battery died.  Shaking my head, I mumbled in my heart, “Thank you, Jesus; I’m certain this was from you!!”  I discussed it briefly with the doctor as the plane began to land.  During our time in Nicaragua, Brittany didn’t salt any of her food and didn’t have any dizzy spells during the whole trip!

That was over six years ago, and Brittany is no longer my Dizzy Salty Daughter!

We prayed…..God heard.

We trusted…..God answered.

In our weak human condition, we joyfully give thanks to Whom thanks is due . . . He is a God who can be trusted!

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the Name of the LORD our God.        –Psalm 20:7

Copyright © 2012 by William D. (Nick) Nichols

For fun I threw my motorcycle into neutral and free-rolled down the long hill from our apartment in Penang, Malaysia.  Coming to a stop at the intersection across from the local mosque, I waited.  It’s a dangerous intersection.  A hundred yards on my left is a tight blind curve and a hundred yards on my right is another tight blind curve.  So I wait.  I look right….then left….then right, left again and pull out.

It’s a blur, but a speeding red taxi has shot out of the blind curve on my right!  Stunned that I’m suddenly ten feet from the front end of his taxi and shocked that he’s not trying to stop, by the time I hit my accelerator, he’s less than three feet from the broadside of my bike.  With my back wheel spinning and smoking, my bike slides sideways and his speeding front bumper misses my leg and the side of my motorcycle by mere inches!!

Pulling over into the mosque parking lot, I stopped and looked back just in time to watch him round the next blind curve.  Out loud I said, “Thank you, Lord Jesus, for protecting me again!!”  So many times He has saved my hide!  But what if He hadn’t saved me and if I had been smacked by the taxi and thrown through the air, hitting the ground rolling–ripping clothes, breaking bones, and coming to a stop in a puddle of my own blood?  I saw it happen to a friend of mine when I was a kid . . . and the thought chilled me.

A couple weeks after the near-miss on my motorcycle, my wife and two daughters and I flew to Krabi, Thailand, for spring break.  We both work at an international school in Malaysia.  My daughter had gotten us an incredible coupon deal, so we were able to stay at a nice resort a few blocks from the ocean.

From the beach, the view is beautiful.  In the clear blue waters there are solitary limestone peaks that are world-class attractions for rock climbers with their near vertical rock walls and the coral reefs at their base for divers.  When I first saw the islands, they looked like giant multi-shaped rocks that were randomly placed around in the water.  Some of them are huge and even have their own beaches.

In search of a closer look at these natural wonders, we tried to find a tour excursion, but all the island-hopping tours were booked, so we ended paying for a private, three-island hop.  We had the boat all to ourselves; it was just us and the boatman.  The boats that are used to shuttled tourists among the islands originated in Thailand and are called long-tail boats.  They’re a heavy wooden boat about thirty feet long and can carry around twelve to fifteen passengers.  They’re propelled by a car motor mounted on top of a swivel with a long shaft that sticks out about fifteen feet behind the boat with a propeller on the end, thus the name, long-tail boat.  The propeller is connected directly to the driveshaft; with no other gearing, this simple design allows them to easily navigate their boats through shallow or deep water.

The first rock island we came to was for snorkeling.  My wife was having trouble getting the hang of snorkeling in the waves, so I pushed her to some rocks at the base of the island and tried to steady her on a smooth rock.  In the process, however, I got washed away and chopped up my leg on some barnacles.  We got to see lots of fish though, as they followed the blood trail to my leg!  I’m glad there weren’t any sharks around because as big as I am, they would smell the blood, see my size, and think, “Buffet!!”

The next island stop was to a much larger rock outcropping.  Wondering what was so special about this island, I soon learned as we rounded the island away from the coastline.  Our boatman took us through a long narrow rock corridor with high jagged walls that opened into a beautiful lagoon rimmed with green Mangrove trees.  The lagoon was about the size of half a football field.  Other long-tail boats were there, as were some kayakers in bright pink kayaks brought by a larger boat anchored outside the corridor.

The lagoon had a sandy bottom and was about shoulder deep on me.  The high surrounding rock walls gave one the feeling of being in another world.  Forty feet up from the water was a small cave overlooking the lagoon; I thought how fun it would be to camp overnight up there. Looking at the surrounding Mangroves, I wanted to snorkel to their base and see the flora and fauna that inhabited the area around their submerged roots.  I also noted there were no boats among the Mangrove trees so decided that snorkeling in that area would be a safe thing to do.

Leaving our anchored long-tail boat, we all got out to swim. While my family stayed around the boat, I took off by myself for the Mangrove trees.  Slowly gliding to the root base so as not to disturb the natural environment, I reached forward and steadied myself by holding onto two roots.

For the biologist that I am, this was awesome!!  Staying motionless in the water, I felt so honored to enter into their world as I watched the schools of hundreds of inch-long silver fish with large eyes and light iridescent blue markings swim around, checking out my face and hands. “What is this huge ‘object’?”  Then a small shrimp swimming by stopped on a root for a minute, stared at me, and then casually swam off.  There were snails, small crabs, and different kinds of algae among the young Mangrove roots.  I was completely captivated by this bio-circus of life in this part of God’s creation.

Then suddenly…WHAM!!..an unexpected smack ripped me out of their playground and slammed me down hard into the water!!  A second later when my head popped out of the water, all I could see was a big wooden boat hull in my face. The next thing I knew someone grabbed the hair on my head and forcefully shoved my head back between two roots.  Instantly the boat filled the tight gap between the two Mangrove trees as the long-tail boat skidded across my chest with the propeller chopping the water inches from my body.

The boatman kept going and didn’t seem to realize what had just happened!  The man who had managed to shove my head out of the way and his wife were running to the back of their boat to see if I was okay.  I looked behind me and saw my wife and two daughters looking frantic with fear.  I checked myself for cuts and was amazed I didn’t have any broken bones!!

In the moments that followed, I realized if the guy hadn’t pushed my head back into the roots, I would have been forced under the boat in the shallow water by the forward momentum of the boat. Then, when I would have popped up after the boat had passed over me, I would have been in the gap between the back of the boat and the long shaft with the grinding propeller—my body getting chopped up like ground beef as it crossed over me.

“Lord Jesus,” I said, “thank you for sparing me again!!”  I waved and assured my wife and daughters that I was okay and swam back to them. There was pure relief on their faces! Later I learned that one daughter saw the whole incident and yelled, “Poppy’s just been hit by a boat!” But they were too far away to be of any help.

I think by then the boatman that hit me finally realized what happened and took off!  I still couldn’t figure out how the guy who grabbed my hair was able to reach me because it was a long distance between the top of the bow and the top of my head.

Later as I reflected on the boat-body-slam and my near motorcycle-mash-up, I thought, “What if I had not been saved?  What if the all-knowing God in His infinite wisdom had a good reason for me to be hurt and suffer?

Would that change my trust in Him?

While there have certainly been times of confusion throughout my life, I have come to understand that no matter how I feel or what difficulty I’m going through, it does not change Who He Is.

He is Almighty God, a solid foundation—the One who can be trusted—in the good times as well as in the tough times.

I shall bless Lord Jehovah in all times,

and in all times shall his praises be in my mouth.       –Psalm 34:1 (Aramaic Bible)

Copyright © 2012 by William D. (Nick) Nichols