Mission trip(s) | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Mission trip(s) | Previous Challenge Entry
By Shirlin Yesudhasan
09/01/22
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My mother went to be with the Lord in February of 2021. The first words she told me when I visited her in India were, “I am going to see Jesus”. At the time I did not realize that her time was nearing. Again the last words she told me before she was put on the ventilator were, “I am going to Jesus”. God graciously gave me two weeks to spend with her in the hospital, reading the Word with her every day, and praying. We had a bitter relationship and God restored our relationship in those two weeks. While traveling to India to see her, I kept hearing the word “mission trip” and regardless of the circumstances, my heart was filled with a joy that I could not understand then. My mother lived a very difficult life and so I just felt grateful that God in His grace delivered her from this misery and gave her the assurance of heaven and she left behind a glorious smile for me to be assured of when she left this world.

After my mom’s leaving, my dad’s behavior changed upside down. He went from bad to worse. He knew the Lord and even diligently gave gospel tracts in the streets, but his life did not exactly reflect that of a believer. This angered me much and I expressed so much hate towards him every day when I talked to him. In the meantime, things started to get very difficult with him and I decided to wake up early in the morning every day to pray for him. This could not have been from my idea or wisdom, because I had never sacrificed my sleep time for anything. Once I started to wake up to pray earnestly for him, one day I heard God tell me, “No one ever has changed because people showed them anger. Love can change people but not anger. Show him love”. I instantly prayed asking God to help me with this anger issue because I realized instantly that I cannot overcome this in my own strength. And right away I felt a heavy thing leave me. From then, I never got angry at my dad.

From there on, slowly things started to change with my dad. By the time of November, he even thanked me for everything that I was trying to do from thousands of miles away to take care of him. In words that I could convey, he saw my helplessness from being far away and my love for him. God had put the burden on my heart to pray for him diligently. I poured out my heart before God the entire year for him. I wanted only one thing. Whenever was my dad’s time, I wanted him to go to heaven too. It wasn’t a prayer that I could do for a person who made me cry the most.

On my mom’s first anniversary, my dad broke down and cried at her grave. I prayed as usual on her anniversary early in the morning and after my prayer, I saw a dream. And I felt that something was going to happen to my dad. The next day my dad had dizziness which led to a hip fracture. One thing led to the other and I was traveling to India to see my dad who was already on the ventilator by then. God told me to tell in my dad’s ear that I loved him and to tell him that I forgave him and to ask him for his forgiveness. My dad was on a ventilator for four weeks. Every day I knelt down by his bed and prayed for him, read the Word in his ears, and talked to him assuring him that he will go to heaven. I pleaded to God desperately for my dad to receive heaven. I asked God to give me assurance that my dad was received in heaven. And God did give me that assurance in many ways.

Sometimes people can make it very hard for us to love them. Sometimes were are those difficult people. Regardless, Christ demonstrated His love for us on the cross, and so may He help us to love everyone.

Ephesians 4:32 NKJV And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

1 John 3:18 NKJV My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

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