Audio Version: God’s Everlasting Grace. My Daughter Has Scoliosis

God’s Everlasting Grace. My Daughter Has Scoliosis!

by Lynn Foo, Contributed by Damansara Utama Methodist Church

Probably nothing can ever come close to a mother’s anguish and lonely feeling for a child that is suffering from a particularly rare medical condition. Yet amid such a situation, Ee Lin, a mother, found reassurance in God’s everlasting grace, not just in seeing her daughter, Alison, through to her recovery journey, but also in His providence. In the mother and daughter’s journey of faith, God also brought along people that gave them crucial emotional and spiritual support. This is Ee Lin and Alison’s testimony.    

“My love for your daughter far surpasses how much you think you love her as a mother. Will I not take care of her?”

Those were the clear words that God reassured Ee Lin with, as she prayed and cried out to God for His protection over her daughter.

Lim Ee Lin’s journey with the Lord Jesus Christ, has been a series of divine and supernatural encounters. She recalls how, more than 20 years ago, she came to accept Jesus as her personal saviour. She witnessed how God’s timing was always on point – how a voice got her to start her journey to a church, arriving just in time for service, and how the Holy Spirit touched her. 

Soon busy-ness got in the way, but God was constantly speaking to her, asking her to ‘come home’.  On one occasion, when she was working in a bank as a counter officer, the same voice prompted her to ask a lady customer if she was a Christian. Although strange, she obeyed and that was how Ee Lin was introduced by this lady, Irene, to attend DUMC. 

Fast forward to the year 2006, Ee Lin and her husband were blessed with a beautiful baby girl, Allison. However, when Allison was seven months old, Ee Lin noticed a strange posture with Allison’s hand and took her to the pediatrician. Allison was then diagnosed with scoliosis – a medical condition that caused her spine to have an abnormal curve.

As time progressed, Allison’s condition deteriorated, and her spine was bending at close to 70 degrees when she was three years old. Specialists recommended major surgery to insert rods in her spine to straighten the curve. They explained that it would be a high-risk surgery. Ee Lin was caught in a dilemma whether to proceed or not. If Allison went into surgery, there was a possibility she might not make it; but if she did not, the continuous curving of the spine would mean that it could press on her internal organs and eventually lead to organ failure. Surgery would also mean the start of a long-term journey, with Allison having to go through a surgical procedure twice a year to continually extend the rods.

At that point in time, all Ee Lin could do was to pray, and she was prompted by the Holy Spirit to pray that God would allow this surgery in His time, using the right method.

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To mitigate the risk of Allison’s organs being damaged, Ee Lin agreed to the surgery. As they were preparing for surgery, Allison suddenly had a runny nose in the morning and the operation was postponed. During that time, the team of doctors re-evaluated Allison’s case and decided that the risks involved would be too high due to her body weight and the long duration of the surgery.

They decided to proceed with an alternative treatment to put Allison in a fixed cast. It was a challenge for Ee Lin as the cast caused Allison to start developing infections on her skin. God pulled Ee Lin through that time, providing her with wisdom on how to clean and care for Allison. Allison was subsequently provided with a flexible brace when she was seven, which she used till she was 12. During this time however, Allison could not really grow and only gained two kilos in the span of five years. At 12, having a spine curvature of about 100 degrees, doctors then suggested that surgery had become a very viable option for Allison.

Ee Lin began searching extensively across the Internet for other possible locations for the surgery – from the United States to Taiwan. But there was a still small voice telling Ee Lin that she should just proceed with the surgery at PPUM. Still, restless and wanting to decide for herself, she got in touch with a Taiwanese professor after a long search. And the professor’s advice was for her to seek treatment at PPUM! “If only I had just trusted in the Lord’s voice instead of using my own strength and allowing fear to grip me,” Ee Lin recalls.

In God’s perfect timing, it was finally time for Allison’s surgery. As Ee Lin prayed, God sent her a vision of a troop of angels and assured her that these angels would be protecting Allison. She later realised that these angels came in the form of Professor Kwan and his medical team. They attended to Allison and stood by her as Allison stayed and recuperated in the hospital from late April 2019 to late July 2019.

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The surgery went well, and it took half the time of what was initially anticipated, due to advancements in medical technology.  Indeed, it was God’s timing and His method. As Allison recovered in the hospital, miracle after miracle happened. A dear friend, Kit Wan, who had recently switched to freelancing work, was able to help Ee Lin. However, during that time, another challenge surfaced – her husband suffered a stroke, but by God’s amazing grace, he recovered well. 

Ee Lin’s heart is filled with gratitude for the other angels like her aunt, Madam Lim Jim Bee, who provided nutritious food for Allison that helped her gain 11kg, in just two and a half months – which was so essential in her recovery journey!  Church members and leaders like Pastor Meng Geok and Pastor Jonathan offered much spiritual comfort for her and Allison as well. During those trying moments, her travelling to and from their home in Shah Alam was taking a toll on her as well. She shares her gratefulness for the goodwill and solidarity of the DUMC leadership to allow her to park her car in the church premises, as the car served as her makeshift ‘storage space’ of clothes and other essential items.

Her colleague at work, Stella, was also there, supporting Ee Lin in her business dealings with clients and filling in the gaps for her at her workplace. God also worked through her clients like Mae and her husband, who supported the work that she was doing. In addition to that, Ee Lin also had the chance to share the gospel with her elderly mother. Her mother, who was at that time a non-believer, learned to pray for Ee Lin and Allison, as she knew that the prayer of a mother is very powerful. Through that experience, Ee Lin was able to share about this prayer-answering God who is always watching over us. 

Another miracle was in God’s generous providence in their lives. The medical finances had quickly become a major worry for Ee Lin. As she spoke to another lady whose daughter had been there and in a very similar condition with Allison, Ee Lin thought to herself, “there is no way I will have enough to pay for the total bill”. But God gave her constant reassurance that all would be sufficient. When it was time for Allison to be discharged, Ee Lin had only one choice, which was to surrender to God. The amount that was charged was only a third of what the other patient had to pay! The hospital administration had also helped her to seek welfare funding. In other words, whatever she had was sufficient, and there was even some left over which could be used for Allison’s post-surgery care. Till today, she cannot comprehend how this would have been possible, if not for the gracious and miraculous Hand of God.

The miracles and the presence of God have been endless in Ee Lin’s life till today. She rejoices that “it is really only by the work and love of God that I can share this story with you. God is so evident in my life that all I can say is, to Him be All Praise and Glory, forever!”

About Damansara Utama Methodist Church

Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC) is widely respected as a church for all generations—an exciting community of families, senior citizens, young adults, teenagers, and young children, doing life together. Its primary purpose is to build passionate disciples of Jesus Christ, summed up in their tagline ‘Love God, Serve People, Make Disciples’. To find out more about them, visit their website at http://dumc.my/