By Boxson Low Heng Ong (This article appeared in Asian Beacon in Nov/Dec 1996 vol 28 no 6 & 7)
Wednesday 9th March 1994 was a day of darkness for my wife Kristin and me. The CAT scan in the Medical Centre in Subang Jaya on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur had shown that there was a sizeable tumour in the brain of our only boy, Marcus. The suspicion of our Malacca doctor was confirmed.
Our world was suddenly shattered to pieces.
We were very confident that morning when I was driving to Subang Jaya from our hometown Malacca with my wife and Marcus. We had been enjoying God’s blessings since our whole family accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour in 1990. I had a good job with a steady income. Marcus was 12 years old, a top student in his school, excelling in both studies and extramural activities. Our other children, a pair of 10 years old twin girls, were also doing well in school. Surely everything was going to be all right.
But God had other plans for us which we did not realize at that time. When we were told of the diagnosis that late afternoon, we were completely shattered.
“How could this be? Our son Marcus down with brain tumour? Lord, what is happening?” we cried. My wife was crying like a baby. I appeared strong on the outside but inside of me I was no different from her. Suddenly my wife ran out of the neurologist’s clinic to the hospital reception downstairs, crying all the way. The more she was consoled, the louder she cried. The hospital staff must have witnessed similar scenes many times before, yet when they saw her sobbing uncontrollably they cried with her.
“God, where are You when we need You most?”
We simply could not take the bad news. Not only was there a sizeable tumour but it was likely to be malignant (as subsequently confirmed), and the condition of Marcus was so bad that an immediate surgery had to be undertaken that midnight to insert a V/P shunt (which is actually a duct) to drain away the brain fluid which had accumulated as a result of the tumour. The major surgery to remove the primary tumour was to be done days later.
Looking back my wife and I know that God did not desert us. He was not only with us throughout our ordeal but He was in fact carrying us through our most difficult stages. Kristin, when she finally came to grips with the situation, surrendered our son totally to the Lord. She said “Lord, we are in no position to handle this. You take over. Marcus is all Yours.” With that, she completely let go of Marcus like what Abraham did with Isaac in the Genesis account in the Bible. Following that she felt a sense of relief and great peace. She was prepared to accept whatever was to come for Marcus following the diagnosis.
I too was starting to have my own experiences with the Lord. That Friday, two days after the diagnosis, I decided to make a trip back to Malacca to attend to certain outstanding matters so as to prepare myself for a long stay in Subang Jaya for Marcus’ major surgery. As soon as I had started on the two-hour road journey, I played an audio cassette tape. I had played that tape numerous times before but that morning the worship songs from the tape ministered to me like never before. I found myself crying all the way to Malacca. Not out of sadness, but from the assurance of the presence of God and His peace. There was one song which particularly ministered to me. I did not know the lyrics then.
Upon arrival at Malacca, I was led to do two things which I had not planned.
The first was to go straight to my mother and my mother-in-law, both of whom were ancestral and idols worshippers, to forbid them to seek their own form of spiritual help for Marcus. I told them that I wanted only the divine intervention of my Jesus, not any other spiritual help. I was not a man of great faith then but I was led to say it.
The second was to get rid of some pornographic materials which I had kept hidden from my young days. I felt the peace of God so much that upon my return to Subang Jaya later that evening, my sister-in-law commented that I looked very refreshed. Much later, out of curiosity, I checked the lyrics of the song which had ministered to me so much. The wordings came forth:-
This peace give I you
Not as the world give I
Open your heart to receive My peace
So to worship Me.
Jesus was assuring me of His peace! A few days later as I was reading the Bible, I came to John 14:27 and the verse sprang forth: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid”.
WAS THAT A COINCIDENCE?
Throughout our ordeal the unseen Hand of God was very real to us. Things just fell into places without our planning for them. We simply had no time to plan anything. Even if we had tried, we know that the outcome would not have been as good. We did not know anything about the Medical Centre we had brought Marcus to. As it turned out, it was at that time probably the only private hospital with laser technology for brain surgery. Neither did we know anything about the neurosurgeon. But he turned out to be among the most popular in the region with many overseas cases referred to him. And he was a Christian.
I remember him telling me just before the major surgery that he would do his best as a doctor but that as Christians we have to leave the outcome with the Lord. There were so many such ‘coincidences’ along the way before and after the major surgery that one of our relatives (a non-Christian) was led to comment that our God must have been with us to guide us through. He was right. Kristin and I were not ardent readers of the Bible then and it was amazing how the Lord somehow led us to many Scripture verses to assure us that He was with us and that His glory would be revealed in our son’s situation.
My wife had never read the book of Isaiah before, yet the Lord led her to Isaiah 43:2-3 at the time when we were going through the ordeal, and then to Isaiah 43:10-13 when we had come out of it. I was led to Psalm 118:17 and John 9:3 in the same unusual way as I had John 14:27. These were definitely not coincidences.
More bad news awaited us when Marcus was sent for an MRI scan on 16th March, two days before the major surgery.
The tumour was found to be of size 3.5cm by 4.7cm by 3.7cm. Not only that, there were two tumour seedlings further in the brain, indicating that the tumour was spreading. This information was not made known to us at the time of the 9th March diagnosis probably because the doctors then thought that we were in no position to take the news.
However, by 16th March, we were ready for anything. We just took the news in our stride, trusting God for a way out.
I can still remember clearly the morning of 18th March 1994. Marcus was lying there outside the operating theatre. Kristin and some of our relatives and friends were there. We were waiting for him to be pushed in. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, anyone of us could do except to trust God for the best.
The surgery was supposed to take four hours but the neurosurgeon did not come out to meet us until some six hours later. He immediately called for my wife and me. We went to him not knowing what to expect.
He started by praising God and then went on to say that the surgery was a complete success.
He had removed at least 98% of the primary tumour cells and under microscope the base of the tumour was now completely clean. He had earlier told us that he had to do the surgery just right, not under-removing the tumour cells nor overdoing it to cause damage to the brain. And he did it just right. But he added that he would have been much happier had our son been diagnosed earlier and the surgery done earlier, as it stood, he had to leave the tumour seedlings alone.
But where my wife and I were concerned, nothing mattered more at that point in time than to praise God for He had seen to it that the surgery was a complete success.
My wife also felt God speaking to her at that moment that He was a Perfect God Who would not do things halfway.
We did not give it a thought how God would complete the job. We just kept praising Him for the successful surgery.
Exactly one month later on 18th April we were advised to send Marcus for another MRI scan to prepare him for radiation which was the next stage in his treatment. We will never forget that day nor the expression of the lady radiologist when she came out to meet with us after the scan was done.
The scan took about half an hour and during that time she had sent her nurse out twice to check with us whether our son had already undergone radiation. We were puzzled for it was with a view to the coming radiation that we had come for this scan. We did not know what to expect when we were ushered to a room to wait for the radiologist after the scan.
Then she came in. The moment she saw us, she kept repeating excitedly
“It is amazing. It has never happened before. The two tumour seedlings are totally gone!”
When we heard that we simply just broke down and cried unashamedly with joy to our Lord. Our Sovereign God had done a miracle on our son when we least expected it. We had by then been conditioned to receive bad news, but this time it did not come. The MRI machine and the doctor now could find no traces whatsoever of the tumour seedlings.
Looking back, we know that God wanted to reveal to us His glory, to show us that it is He and He alone Who had healed our son. The glory was to be His alone. We learnt later that it was not necessary to have the scan done before radiation. Had radiation been done before the scan and the scan showed no traces of the tumour seedlings, many would have attributed this to radiation. This was what the lady radiologist had thought when she sent out her nurse twice to check with us whether our son had already undergone radiation.
We have no doubts that God caused us to have the MRI scan done before radiation so that we and all others might know that it was HE alone Who had healed our son, not radiation.
Kristin and I have since realized that God had put us through a refining fire to prepare us to be used by HIM. Being the Refiner, He did not give us more heat than we could take. We have since shared this testimony of the glory of God countless times in churches and meetings all over and we will continue to do so in fulfillment of Psalm 118:17, John 9:3 and John 11:4 which were verses (coincidentally?) revealed to us at the time of our ordeal.
Marcus in form 2 is now living a normal life. Though absent for a major part of his Standard six year, he went back to take the UPSR exam to pass with excellent results. 
2015 Update: 20 years on
Marcus is now 32 years old.
Marcus (left)
He has completed his tertiary education at the University of Technology Sydney and is now living a normal life as a young working adult in Malaysia. Even my mother, having seen the glory of God at work, has since accepted the Lord Jesus into her life despite her old age. All glory be to Him, our God. Amen. Sequal article posted
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