MY grandmother was of simple but great faith, and it was while growing up on her knee I learnt to trust the same God she worshipped with same childlike faith she had.
A lot of which came to me through stories she related, real and vividly true ones!
One was how, when they as a family were in Singapore during World War-II, Japanese bombers came in day after day, hour after hour bombing towns and villages, and it was then my grandfather a preacher started a prayer group, in which men and women prayed through the day and night for safety.
Later after the war, a Japanese pilot told a member of that town, that whenever they flew to bomb that town, there was always a cloud over it and because of which the pilots couldn’t see through and flew past.
Another story was about her son, a fighter pilot, whose plane I was told caught fire while he was flying, “And Bob,” she told me, her eyes alight with tears of joy, “angels carried him safely down to earth!” Later, I was told it was a parachute, but I believed my grandmother’s version.
In my book DARE I have mentioned three or four other episodes of simple, childlike faith in my life, and have written about them because I believe absolutely and completely that my God, a God of miracles is very much at work in our lives.
Why am I speaking of my long dead grandmother and the faith she taught me to have? Yesterday, like most days, I played with my daughter’s year-old dog, on my terrace. It had just rained and I chuckled as agile Noah kept himself from sliding and slipping all over.
Suddenly, seeing a bird sitting on the parapet wall he lunged and before my horrified eyes, I saw him, slide over the wall, and fall forty feet to the ground below.
I heard his pathetic scream as he hit the ground, and as I ran panic stricken to the stairwell, and raced down, all I did was cry out to my Lord and my God, imagining the bloody sight that would greet me when I reached below.
I found him standing! Slightly forlorn, very dazed and in shock. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I expected him to collapse any moment, but slowly we climbed the steps back together.
Not a scratch! The vet came later and examined him for internal injuries. It seemed I heard him silently whisper, “It is a miracle!” Noah watches me now as I write, and do I hear him saying, “Tell them a God of miracles is there for any one of those who believe and call on Him!” In the background I hear Jesus telling his disciples, two thousand years ago, as he heals the sick and raises the dead, “With God all things are possible!” ‘Oh yes!’ I shout..!
