From the Standing Strong Through the Storm daily on-line devotional of the ‘Open Doors’ organization, posted November 12, 2019 at:
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Hope In The Face Of Rejection
A young lady from India who received “Standing Strong Through The Storm” training shared this poignant story:
Though I long to see my family, I cannot go home. I haven’t been home in three years, ever since my family poured hot water on me to show their hostility. They were extremely upset when I accepted Christ as my Savior as a teenager. I stopped worshiping idols and other gods that my family worshiped. I began to pray and read the Bible every day. My family kept food from me and hurt me in many ways. They tore Bibles from my hand and burned them, six of them.
I was beaten severely for attending church services. One time so badly that I was half dead. While I was still on my sick bed I heard the voice of God saying, “Leave your family whom you love and follow me.” It was a very difficult decision for me, but I agreed to do His word. So I told my father that I would be leaving for Bible College to study and learn about Jesus. On hearing my words he was furious and said that if I was to do my own will then I could leave for good. He demanded money that he had spent for my upbringing. It broke my heart.
Learning of the terrible condition I was in, an evangelist reached out to me with help and brought me to a Bible College supported by Open Doors. After a year I went home expecting my family to accept me. But they remained unchanged.
Two years later, my father attended my Bible College graduation in secret, coming in late to the back and leaving early. He did not want to speak to me. My family has only given me pain and sorrow and I think about it and weep.
But I believe in God’s promise, “Let your heart not be troubled, believe in God and also in me, there are many rooms in my father’s house…I will come back and take you with me” (John 14: 1-3). So one day I will be with Him in His heavenly home where there will be no more sorrow, crying or pain.
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Mark 10:29-30 — “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.”
Luke 14:26 (God’s Word Translation) — (Jesus said), “If people come to me and are not ready to abandon their fathers, mothers, wives, children, brothers, and sisters, as well as their own lives, they cannot be my disciples.”
Psalm 27:10 — Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.
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Be gracious, Lord, to all that are near and dear to me, and keep us all in thy fear and love. Guide us, good Lord, and govern us by the same Spirit, that we may be so united to thee here as not to be divided when thou are pleased to call us hence, but may together enter into thy glory, though Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord and Savior. Amen.
–John Wesley
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