Broken Body, Unbroken Faith – How God’s Sovereign Hand Carried a Young Man through Suffering to Full Restoration

Sometimes afflictions occurred that our human understanding can never fathom to be possible, yet they happened nonetheless. Finding the courage and strength to trust God’s sovereignty during these dark moments can often be a challenge. But Jesus has assured us that:

Everything is possible for one who believes (Mark 9:23) and What is impossible with man is possible with God. (Luke 18:27 NIV)

Benjamin Ch’ng’s has a first-hand experience of this through an unexpected upheaval in his life. Through this life experience, he affirms that God is in control and everything is possible by His sovereign power – He does not abandon you in difficult times and these moments of afflictions may serve as key opportunities for spiritual growth.

Ben, a Malaysian Electrical Engineer, working in U.S.A, is a cheerful healthy man in his early thirties. He loves outdoor sports like biking, snowboarding, and many other outdoor activities. One night, feeling a little feverish, he went to sleep early, not knowing that he would be facing major upheavals to his once peaceful life and that his faith would be severely tested. Ben didn’t wake up the next morning as he would have expected it. Instead he was rushed to the hospital and was in a coma for the next ten days.

Upon waking up on the tenth morning, he appeared normal at first but by evening, he had a brain bleed and had to be rushed to emergency for a craniotomy surgery to stop the brain haemorrhage. The doctors discovered that the staphylococcus bacteria was the cause of the brain bleed. That was the first of many surgeries that Ben had to endure for the next eighteen months. His anxious parents were informed that Ben would likely be in a vegetative state upon waking up.

Mending His Broken Body

After the brain surgery, Ben had several infections in the lungs and urinary tract. The doctors had to perform a tracheostomy to insert a tube in the trachea to enable easier breathing for Ben. This was followed by a PEG surgery to insert a feeding tube directly into his stomach where only pureed food and fluids were fed to him. Upon recovery from the surgeries, Ben was transferred to a rehabilitation centre where he was supposed to begin his long journey to mend his broken body.

At this stage, Ben was totally helpless, depending on someone to help him answer his every basic need, every time, every day. It was a very humbling experience for Ben who now understands what a person with a physical disability has to endure every day.

After six weeks, Ben’s speech improved and he could also walk with the aid of a walker. The hospital staff who had seen him being lifted up with a harness to sit and stand before, was amazed at his quick recovery!

Then Ben faced the first roadblock on his road to recovery. The doctors discovered he had endocarditis when he suddenly became unconscious. The bacterial infection had spread to his heart valves. Ben needed a heart valve replacement surgery urgently. By God’s grace, a doctor was available to perform the surgery just within the week.

But that was not the end of Ben’s journey to complete recovery. Four months after his heart surgery, Ben needed a laminectomy surgery to relieve the pressure on the spinal cord (stenosis). He was back to square one. His six weeks of physical rehabilitation was totally wasted. He had to re-learn many physical tasks again, including walking.

Unbroken Faith

I met Ben for the first time when he returned to Malaysia for a well-deserved break to meet up with friends and family members. He is almost back to his normal self and cheerfully declared, at the start of the interview, that he felt blessed to be chosen to endure this suffering. He drew a parallel between his own challenges and those experienced by Job in the Bible. The Lord gave Satan permission to test Job, that is He allows it. And Ben felt that the Lord chose him, and allowed this suffering to test him. He joyfully claimed that if this is a test he passed it.

We usually have an unfavourable view of suffering, seeing it only as an interruption of our health, an unwelcome break from our pursuit of life and happiness. How we react to adversity when it comes is a measure of our faith. We can see it as a miserable experience to be endured or go into depression, even venting our anger at God. Or we can offer it to God for His redemptive purposes. Ben chose to trust God from day one.

Ben believes that it was his faith that sustained him through this crisis. He was never in despair and his faith in the Lord was never broken; despite suffering through three major surgeries, was almost blind when the infection was just a hair-breath from the retina of his right eye and lost his hearing in his right ear permanently. He sensed that his suffering may serve as God’s tool to fulfill His purposes, to help him grow deeper in his faith and in his relationship with God. Ben held on to the promise in 1 Peter 5:10 that:

The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

Today Ben is standing strong, firm and steadfast, ready to endure many things for the Lord before he enters into God’s glory.

Faith in His Promises

Ben shared that all his pain and suffering were resolved not by his own efforts or determination but by relying on the enduring truth that Christ alone is in full control of his life and He keeps His promises. At night when he felt fearful, he was comforted by the verse in Isaiah 41:10:

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Ben believes that our sovereign Lord, Jesus Christ, Who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Philippians 3:21 NIV)

God has transformed his broken body and kept His promise not to forsake or abandon him when he was crushed in spirit and afflicted. Several incidents revealed that God’s loving hands were at work when many times what seem impossible were made possible by Him.

When Ben needed a heart valve replacement surgery urgently, he was scheduled for this major surgery just within a week, when normally patients would have to wait for months before they can be scheduled.

Ben’s total medical bill was a whooping US$2 million! His compassionate employer allowed Ben to remain as an employee, despite his long absence, so that Ben could claim the insurance benefits. Ben would have been crushed financially by this debt for a lifetime if he had no insurance coverage.

Ben is certainly witnessing for God through the suffering he had endured. He affirms that God is closest to us when we are broken and crushed in spirit. He uses our suffering to help us grow closer to Him. When others who see what we have endured, and how calm, positive and at peace we are, they will see God’s glory displayed by our response to our pain and suffering.

Ben feels that God took him through the refiner’s fire of suffering to make him into pure gold. He does not know exactly what bigger plan the Lord has in store for him now that He has allowed him to overcome this life-threatening adversity. He reckons that the Lord is pointing him to a bigger role in His plans for him.

No matter how heart-wrenching our situation is, as God’s children, we trust that Christ our Lord will restore things better than anything before or even better than what we can imagine. He is thus profoundly humbled and blessed that God chose him to bear witness for Him through his scars and wounds. Ben is looking forward to see how his life will unfold to serve the Lord and to fulfill His glorious plans for him.

Joy Amidst Suffering

As Ben has testified, suffering is not an accident but a plan, God’s plan for us. We are to rejoice in our suffering not in spite of the affliction, but even because of it. This fiery trial isn’t meaningless. It is purposeful and for our testing. Suffering awakens us to the sovereignty of our Almighty God.

Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:12-13 ESV)

When we keep rejoicing in God in the midst of suffering, it shows that God, and not worldly things, is the source of our joy.

So if you are suffering according to God’s will, keep on doing what is right and trust yourself to the God who made you, for He will never fail you. (1 Peter 4:19 TLB)