Page 66 - Unseen Hands by Nona Freeman

Unseen Hands
all." With this she laid her hands on promises in the Psalms and prayed over them.
That week, during a conference at the mission, she heard Tekle preach for the third time. She enjoyed the first two messages; this time he made her angry, and she walkedout. "Blasphemer! The very idea of holding out an aspirin and saying, Tf you had as much faith in Jesus asyouhaveinthis pill,youwould be healed ofyour infir mities.' He compared the great Jesus to a little aspirin tablet!"
Angrilycontemplating Tekle's sermon, her eyes fell onthenumerous bottlesofpills and medicine on her dress ing table. Malnutrition, exposure and abuse had left Erkenesh frail and with little resistance to disease. She suffered from frequent bouts with malaria, amoebic dysentery, severe trachoma, ceaseless headaches, and chronicrheumatism, to mention some of her afflictions.
While in the twelfth grade, a violent siege of cerebral malaria had confined her helplessly in bed for three months andmade the doctorsfear brain damage. Though she recovered, frequent recurrence still debilitated her.
Gazing at the medicine that she considered to be essential for survival, Tekle's words quickened in her heart. She asked, "Am I a true believer? If I really had faith in Jesus, why should I suffer from all these sicknesses and have to depend on tablets for the rest of my life? If I only believed. ..." With these words, faith mounted in
her heart and her prayer continued in a different vein. "0 LordGod, if You will healme, well and good; but even if You do not care to heal me, I will die in Y our hands." As she spoke, she tossed the expensive prescriptions out the window until she cleared her dressing table.
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