4 November 2020

Six years ago I injured my back. I was lifting a three-seater couch with my husband Bruce across a coffee table. We were moving into a new house and it was the last piece of furniture that we moved.

As we lifted it up and over I was favouring my bad shoulder, which can dislocate easily, and I heard and felt a pop.

I was off work for 4 months with torn shoulder muscles and the only way to find any relief was to lie down. Even just standing put too much pressure on the area.

I went to many doctors, physios, I had acupuncture but to no avail. All the scans showed no broken bones so the doctors I was seeing did not know what to do. I think one of them in particular did not even believe that I had injured myself. Other than just pain killers, the people I was sent to just did not help.  I’m not saying that they were no good they just did not have the expertise I needed to identify the injury and work at how to repair it.

It did not help when a few weeks after my injury Bruce was working away and I was home by myself. I thought that a nice hot bath might help my back. Yes, it did give me some relief until I had to empty the bath. It was one of those big old-fashioned ones for the house we had bought was 40 years old.

I heard this gurgling as I pulled out the plug. Then all of a sudden in both bathrooms, the main bathroom and the ensuite, water started coming up through the grate in the floor. Oh no! It was gushing everywhere and starting to head towards the bedrooms that we had just put new carpet into. I had the presence of mind to put the plug back into the bath, then run and grab towels, and more towels, and more towels and after throwing about 20 on the floor of both bathrooms the river of water was halted. The pipes running from the bath were overgrown with old tree roots and were blocked. (I found out later.) And so, no water would go down the plug hole, just up through the floor grate.

After a few minutes I slowly went around towel by towel, now laden with sopping water and very heavy, and threw them into the half-filled bath. That’s where they stayed till Bruce came home, but not till I had injured my injury a little bit more.

So now six years on my muscles still fatigue, spasm and cause me some grief especially at night trying to sleep.

I sometimes can walk the floor for hours at night till the pain subsides, after a hot shower and some pain relief and then crawl into bed in the early hours of the morning.

My local doctor said just go for a massage. At 2am in the morning???

I changed doctors recently and was sharing my medical History with the new doctor.

She suggested I go see a remedial masseuse.

Oh, what a GODSEND! After one session I felt so much better, there was less pain and less contractions of the muscles.

I was for days, thanking God that He had through the doctor sent me to this woman.

It started me thinking. Who is a GODSEND for you? Are YOU a Godsend to others?

God can come and miraculously heal. He could send an Angel, or the Holy Spirit or He could send YOU to help someone else. And not just in health issues.

In the Book of Acts, in Chapter 8, Phillip had been preaching about Jesus in Samaria and many had heard his message and accepted the Word of God and were baptised.

Then in verse 26 an Angel said to Phillip,

“Get up and go south to the road that runs from Jerusalem down to Gaza.” (This is a desert road).

Acts 8:26 AMP

²⁷ So he got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch [a man of great authority], a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship, ²⁸ and he was returning, and sitting in his chariot he was reading [the scroll of] the prophet Isaiah. ²⁹ Then the [Holy] Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.”

Acts 8:27-29 AMP

³⁰ Philip ran up and heard the man reading the prophet Isaiah, and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” ³¹ And he said, “Well, how could I [understand] unless someone guides me [correctly]?”

Acts 8:30-31 AMP

A GODSEND.

This Ethiopian needed ‘an expert’ in scripture to explain to Him what he was reading. And so, Phillip was sent. Phillip was open to listening to God, to the Holy Spirit and to sharing with this man all that He knew about Christ and what Christ has done for all of us.

If you continue to read this passage Phillip baptises this Ethiopian but then an amazing thing happens described in verse 39

³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord [suddenly] took Philip [and carried him] away [to a different place]; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but he went on his way rejoicing.

Acts 8:39

Wow.

Oh, what must this Ethiopian have thought? He might have thought, ‘Was this man real? Where has he gone? Did my GOD SEND this man to me? He came right when I was puzzled and had questions and did not understand what I was reading.

Phillip My GODSEND.’

Thank God Phillip had listened to the Angel and had listened to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

I too thanked God that my new doctor listened to me and had heard my need for relief from tight, painful muscles.

Could the Holy Spirit have whispered to her to send me to this lady who worked a lot with rehabilitation patients?

Thank you God. Both such a GODSEND!

May these jottings from my journal inspire you to believe in and fall in love with Christ- the hope of the world, as stated in Jeremiah 17:7, ‘Blessed is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord!’

Love

Rosemary

Every week groups of ladies meet together to chat about the things I raise in my weekly blog post and to chat about life in general. We call these ‘Heart Connect’ groups. If you would like more information please click HERE.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Do you see or not see God sending people to you to help you?

Are you the GODSEND God wants to send to help others for a purpose?

Are you watching and listening to the Holy Spirit’s promptings?