The suggestion

Just when I thought I had found a way forward, someone pointed me in a completely different direction.

A story of healing

When we heard about a rehabilitation centre for children near Paulina’s parents’ home in Jakarta, we decided to check it out. Paulina flew there to have a look. While she was there, her mother introduced her to Jester, a woman from the local Catholic church community. They started talking, and Jester asked what we were doing to support Naomi and help her recover. Paulina told her about everything we had tried, and shared her fears and doubts as well. Jester listened carefully, then suggested that Paulina do the one thing we had not done: turn to Jesus

She went on to tell Paulina an extraordinary story. Years earlier, Jester had been diagnosed with stage-four cancer. Her doctor had concluded that she had just little time left and that even with immediate surgery her chances of survival were almost nonexistent. Jester decided not to undergo the operation.

Despite the hopelessness of her situation, and to both her own and her doctor’s astonishment, she later found herself miraculously healed. Jester testified that it was Jesus who had healed her. At the moment he touched her, she said, she saw the cancer leaving her body. Feeling better, she returned to the hospital, where doctors discovered that 90 percent of the cancer had disappeared. Amazed, they asked her what she had done. Jester told them she had done nothing and was herself surprised by the diagnosis. They decided to monitor her closely, and a few weeks later the cancer was completely gone. Jester was declared fully healed.

Since then, she had dedicated her life to the church and to praying for people in need. When she prayed, she sometimes experienced what she called “promptings”: specific words, sentences, or visions that related to the people she was praying for. It sounded similar to what my mother experienced when treating people, except that in Jester’s case these promptings were often references to the Bible.

After sharing her story, Jester told Paulina that we had ignored Jesus. All this time, she said, we had placed our trust in all kinds of healing methods but had forgotten about Jesus. Paulina, who had been Catholic since the age of twelve, felt ashamed. She admitted that although she had prayed at times, Jesus had not played a significant role in her life. Jester told her it was important to repent and put her trust in Jesus, to surrender Naomi to him and allow him to help us. She then offered to pray for Paulina and sang songs of worship.

Doubt and resistance

When Paulina returned to Singapore that evening, I was eager to hear what she thought of the rehabilitation centre. Instead, she told me about her conversation with Jester. “We’ve offended Jesus,” she said, and then shared Jester’s story of miraculous healing. She also told me that while Jester was praying for her, a scripture verse had come to mind, which they had looked up in the Bible. It read: “This illness is not unto death.”

I asked Paulina whether the verse referred to Naomi, and she confirmed that it did. Naturally, that sounded hopeful, as it seemed to suggest that Naomi would not remain in this state forever and that recovery was possible. Wanting to understand more, I asked Paulina what the verse actually meant and how it should be interpreted. I wanted to know what Jester had said about it and what else they had discussed. Exhausted from her trip, Paulina did not feel like talking further and, as it was already late, went to bed.

Jester’s words had stirred something in me. I stayed up, went to the study, and thought.

It suddenly occurred to me that I had never thanked God for sparing Naomi’s life. Two years earlier, when I had stood powerless in front of the closed doors of the resuscitation room in Shanghai, I had pleaded with God to let Naomi live. I had walked away having received what I had asked for — without ever looking back to say thank you.

I felt ashamed. On top of that, Paulina’s comment that we had offended Jesus deepened my unease. What did I do? I wondered. I didn’t see myself as a particularly offensive person, nor could I think of anything I had done that might have offended him. I wasn’t even sure Jesus was real, and I’d never paid much attention to him. Perhaps that was the issue. I’d never made an effort to learn who he was.

I did not grow up in a religious family, so as a child Jesus was not a familiar figure to me. I did attend a Christian secondary school, but I don’t remember it as a particularly religious place. As I matured and paid more attention to what was happening in the world, I became increasingly convinced that religion did more harm than good. The constant violence in the Middle East — especially in Israel, where Christianity originated — seemed to confirm that belief. A number of negative personal experiences with Christians only reinforced it.

One married couple I knew preached to me relentlessly, yet at the same time they were cheating and stealing. On the few occasions I visited a church, I noticed that people were abnormally friendly inside, but once outside, they quickly began gossiping about one another. It was the hypocrisy that put me off.

Christianity also felt intellectually unappealing because of the claims made by those who took the Bible literally. Were the Earth, animals and human beings really created in just a few days some six thousand years ago? Had it not been established by now that it took almost a billion years for the Earth just to cool enough for life to even exist? And what about the story of Adam and Eve and the talking snake? Perhaps it was because of these difficult to substantiate biblical accounts that many people avoid openly discussing their Christian beliefs for fear of embarrassment.

A film by a well-known American atheist focused on exactly that: letting Christians embarrass themselves. I watched it and enjoyed it, even though it was pure mockery. Its objective was obvious: to demonstrate that anyone who believes in Jesus and the Bible must have abandoned reason and intelligence.

This was perhaps best illustrated by an interview with a Christian senator. When the interviewer remarked that it was disturbing to know that someone running part of the country believed in talking snakes, the senator replied sheepishly that you didn’t need to pass an IQ test to serve in the Senate. The people featured in the film were clearly carefully selected and did an excellent job of making fools of themselves. I was aware of that, yet it still pushed me further away from Christianity.

I didn’t want to be a Christian. Nor did I want to belong to any other religion. I believed in my own way. I considered myself what they call a free thinker. I believed there was a God — somewhere, out there, up there — but not one I had a personal relationship with.

Jester’s story made me wonder whether I had been wrong to discard Christianity. I found myself in a dilemma. I’d spent a great deal of time trying to make sense of our situation and had gradually warmed to various forms of energy healing and their related philosophies. Admittedly, I had never fully felt at ease with any of them, but at least they offered meaning and a sense of control. That mattered to me.

So when, out of the blue, Jester told us to turn to Jesus, I was caught off guard. Turning to Jesus felt like making a U-turn. It seemed as though I would have to abandon the path I had only just begun to explore. I felt as if I had to choose one over the other, even though no one was actually forcing me to choose at all. Still, the feeling was unsettling.

I reasoned that it made sense for Paulina to turn to Jesus, but not for me. Why would I? I honestly didn’t know what to do. The one thing I did know was that I hadn’t yet found what I was looking for, because I was still searching. Beyond trying to find the most effective therapy to help Naomi recover, I was also, on a spiritual level, trying to understand where the “It’s all right” message had come from. I believed that if I could identify the messenger, the rest of my questions would fall into place.

Was I making progress? I thought I was. It had taken me two years of struggle to finally feel as though I was moving forward. Why would I now turn around and start all over again? I suddenly felt utterly exhausted. Still, I had to give Naomi her medicine. An hour later, I went to bed and fell asleep instantly.

Trying to understand

The next day I woke up determined to sort things out. I asked Paulina what else she and Jester had talked about. Apparently, they had spoken for hours and read various passages from the Bible, including the line: “This illness is not unto death.”

How could a text written two thousand years ago possibly refer to Naomi? I asked Paulina in what context those words appeared, who had spoken them, and how they were meant to be interpreted. If the illness was “not unto death,” then unto what — or when — was it? And who had made that statement and why? I wanted to know how they had arrived at this particular passage. Had Jester suddenly thought of a number and opened the Bible accordingly? Had she known the phrase already and deemed it relevant to us?

Although she had made lots of notes during her talk with Jester, Paulina was unable to explain them as clearly as I wanted to understand them. Almost everything she told me raised new questions she couldn’t answer. Eventually, I was completely confused, and Paulina completely upset. She suggested I figure things out on my own and left the room, leaving me with a handful of Indonesian notes and a tiny pocket-sized Indonesian Bible — neither of which I could read.

In hindsight, I could have picked up an English Bible and looked up the phrases myself, but at the time that didn’t even occur to me. And in truth, it would not have made much difference. I definitely wasn’t ready to absorb or interpret what I might have read.

We didn’t talk about it again, but over the next few days it stayed with me. At first, it bothered me that Paulina and I couldn’t simply talk things through and find clarity together. Gradually, though, my frustration gave way to a different question: if Jesus had healed Jester, could it have been Jesus who saved Naomi that night?

A quiet moment

A few days later, around midnight, I was giving Naomi her medicine. Everything went smoothly. She swallowed well, no medicine was spilled, and once we were finished, she fell asleep almost immediately. Instead of leaving the room, I stayed with her.

After a while, the thought returned: what if it had been Jesus? It occurred to me that I’d never really given him a chance. I had extended the benefit of the doubt to many alternative healing practices — but not to Jesus. Then, in the darkness and stillness of the night, I turned to him. Without much thought, I whispered: “Have pity on me. I will open up to you. Please help.” An unusual choice of words, I thought, but that was all I said.

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Next: The answer