A BEDSIDE GOSPEL TRACT

Deepa’s husband was drunk again. Ronak had claimed to be a believer in Jesus Christ when they first met. But since the time they were married, the only god she had seen him worship was alcohol. Whenever Ronak drank, he’d beat Deepa, leaving her to feel pangs of rejection and despair. Offering sacrifices to her god was the only thing she knew to do to help her husband - and she was desperate for intervention. But nothing changed, and Deepa’s hope faded away. One day, Deepa met women from a Gospel for Asia Women’s Fellow-ship. After hearing her story, they encouraged Deepa and gave her a New Testament and other Christian literature. But Deepa hardened her heart. "I worship my god", she thought, "and if he can’t do anything, then how will this Jesus help me?" A few days later, Deepa had a dream. In it, a violent rainstorm headed her direction. She grabbed her two children and ran to find a safe haven. She wondered if this Jesus she had heard of would help them. Suddenly, there He stood by the road. He showed her the way to the church and asked her to go inside. Deepa knew she would be safe there, so she ran toward it. She woke from her dream with a start and saw the Christian litera-ture lying at her bedside. Curious to learn more about the Man in her dream, Deepa read the tracts and then the New Testament she had been given. As she read, Deepa realized the sacrifice Christ had made on the cross and opened her heart to Him. Deepa began attending the local church services, and she faithfully prayed to Jesus for her husband to change his drunken ways. But instead, Ronak became crueller than he had been before - he even burned her Bible! Yet Deepa refused to give up her newfound faith. Having experienced a strength and peace like none she had known before, Deepa knew she could never go back to her old way of life, no matter how her husband treated her. Seeing his wife’s strong commit-ment to Christ caused Ronak to examine his own life. He began to feel the Lord was using her to bring him back to his First Love. Shame, regret, and disappoint-ment in himself had kept Ronak far from God, but now he did not want to keep on running. Ronak decided to recommit his life to Christ! Today, Ronak is in Bible College, fuelled with a passion to reach those who do not know Jesus and Deepa rejoices in the change only Jesus could have wrought in her husband! - From: Send! {Gospel for Asia’s News Magazine}, March 2014.