“Fear Not!”
By Edith Kiggundi
In the wee hours of March 30, 2020, I sank to my knees and cried out: "Lord, please send help." The petition was prompted by a command I had just received in a dream to "start a prayer chain." Given the time of day, and not clear when this prayer chain should start, I decided to set my own start time to later in the day. As much as I tried, I could not fall back to sleep. My mind was locked on my upcoming angiogram scheduled for 7:30 a.m. that morning. The tossing and turning went on relentlessly until it drove me to my prayer room.
Once there, I tried to read my Bible and pray but I could not focus. In the background was this nagging feeling that it was useless to pray now. I felt discouraged, but in my desperation, I asked Jesus to send someone to pray with me, as I could not seem to pray myself. The promise in Isaiah 65:24 (“It shall come to pass That before they call, I will answer; And while they are still speaking, I will hear”) came alive for me when I suddenly heard a beep on my phone. It was my son, Mark, calling me from Toronto saying that he wanted to pray with me. Maybe it could be expected given the circumstances surrounding my angiogram that morning.
Soon after the prayer with my son, I got another call! This time from my friend, Lungi, in South Africa who had no idea what I was going through, saying that they felt impressed to pray for me. After these two prayers, I checked my phone messages only to find that while I prayed with Mark and Lungi, a message had arrived from a couple in the United States saying they were impressed to pray with me, too.
Full of joy, I phoned the couple and they prayed with me. By the end of the prayer, my faith had solidified. A little later, a friend forwarded me Isaiah 41:10 saying: “Fear not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee, yea; I will help thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”
With all that encouragement, I headed for the hospital where the cardiologists discovered that two of my coronary arteries were 90% blocked. They initiated a procedure during which two stents were inserted. As I watched the team at work, (Yes. I was wide-awake watching the procedure on the screen. I was not sedated.) I felt the presence of the Lord saying, "Fear not I am with you.”
I am grateful to God because when I cried out for help, He had gone before me to answer my need for encouragement and prayer partners. He had an answer already in the works. He knows our every need.
Edith Kiggundi is married with three adult children and currently lives in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada, where she serves as first elder in her local church. She is an educator by profession and a woman of prayer who is passionate about sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Edith believes that prayer changes everything. This testimony is shared with permission of Time to Get Ready Ministries.
World Church Prayer Requests
September 17 - 23, 2021
- Pray especially for our youth as this Sabbath, September 18th, is Pathfinder Day.
- Pray for marriages and family relationships to continue to grow stronger during these challenging times.
- Pray for the church membership in Iceland, and for the three weeks of evangelism meetings currently taking place, that more souls will come to Jesus.
- Pray for the Sakalava on the western coast of Madagascar. Christians make up 35% of the 1,899,000 Sakalava, but the belief of these semi-nomadic people is that God can be reached through mediums. Pray that they learn of salvation through Christ.
- Pray for the Holy Spirit, that we as a church will be a shining light for Jesus in these unstable times. The world desperately needs hope!