Stories

I feel extremely blessed to be born and raised in a Christian family, and to hear about God’s love from the moment I arrived in this world. Even though I was surrounded by Christians and was attending church with my parents regularly, I felt a very strong desire to know God personally when I became a teenager. I asked him to forgive my sins and to accept me as His daughter. I opened my heart for God and He saved me. He made me a new creation and became the Lord of my life. This happened in 1978 and now many years later as I looking into the past, my heart is filled with thankfulness and gratitude. I am so thankful that I came to know God at an early age. Especially that He has protected me from evil things, guided my steps in the right direction, blessed me abundantly and  continues to take care of me all the time. I am so secure in Him and I don’t have any regrets that I became His child and I chose the course to follow, obey, serve, and glorify Him with my life.

 Life sure is full of surprises, isn’t it? It brings us a mix of good and bad things. I am very thankful to God for both, because I know that according to Rom. 8:28 “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” God has given me many joyful moments as well as allowed much difficulties to come to my life. He has tested my faith and developed my long-suffering during dark moments. Though He has always delivered me from these difficulties. /Jacob 1:3 and Psalm 50:15. / That is why I have entrusted my life in His care completely. One of the tests God gave me was the diagnosis of my husband having a tumor in his spinal cord. This was a very difficult time for our family in moral, materialistic and physical aspects.  But God used this illness to glorify Himself and now 8 years after my husband’s surgery, he is doing extremely well, and the MRI results show that there is no evidence of tumor in his body. My husband will always be thankful to God for the miracle He performed in his life.

 Another test that God put us through was the illness of my father. He has suffered from stomach pain and problems with the secretory system for a long time. The doctors had discovered polyps in his colon years ago. The pain was intensifying all the time. His sister died from cancer, and his brother lost the battle with colon cancer too. My father had the same symptoms as his deceased brother and had serious concerns about the development of his illness. We invited my parents to come and visit us here in Dallas during the spring of 2002. My father had to go to the doctor at that time, because the pain became unbearable. The test results showed that my father had a tumor in his colon the size of an orange. The doctors insisted for an immediate surgery to remove the tumor. I wasn’t aware of this until I called my father to give him instructions about their travel to the U.S. My father sounded very disturbed from the news he heard from the doctors and he shared it with me. He also told me that the doctors didn’t recommend for him to travel because of the problems with the secretory system.  They said the pressure and the pain he was feeling could be risky in spreading the tumor. My father was afraid to take this trip because his condition was getting worse and worse. I told him that I couldn’t accept the diagnosis of the doctors, and I insisted my father to have another test here in the States. I asked him not to have the surgery and encouraged him that everything would be O.K.  Even if there was a tumor in his colon, I assured him that nothing is impossible for God and that He is in control of our lives. 

 I shared the problem with our pastor Hristo. He told me not to worry about this at all. He said that when he prayed for my father, God had given him peace about it and he felt that there was no need to ask God about this problem but just to thank Him for what He had already done. At the same time, when God spoke to our pastor’s heart, He had given strong faith to my father and he asked his pastor (Rumen Bordjiev) to pray for him and anoint him with oil during a prayer for healing. My father felt God’s presence very strong during that prayer in the church in Poduene, and there was a huge relief and peace that came into his heart.  God gave my father a special peace and sense of security that everything would be O.K. (this was something no human mind can comprehend).   My father decided against the doctors’ surgery, and rather chose to take a long journey, accompanied by my mother, to come to Dallas. And as everything fell into place, we started to see the miracle happening in front of our eyes.

 Our pastor welcomed and introduced my parents during a Sunday night service and shared with the church about the problem my father had had. Pastor Hristo used past tense talking about my father’s illness because God gave him very strong faith that what ever the problem was, it was already gone. The church prayed for my father that Sunday night and the prayer was about giving thanks to the Lord for the wonderful things he has already done in my father’s life. We, as a church body, strongly believe in the healing power of God, who has dealt with our sins and sicknesses at the cross. We trusted Him completely, accepting the fact that the miracle had already happened.

 In the past, my father was experiencing strong stomach pain constantly, and was eating with fear expecting the food to cause pressure and complications all the time. The secretory system could not function normally due to the big tumor inside of his colon. The color of my father’s skin was yellow and the sick condition of his body was very evident in his appearance. To our amazement, the symptoms of the illness started to disappear one by one. My father started to eat well and his secretory system started functioning without any problems. The joy was indescribable! His skin got its normal color back and he started looking healthy. We were convinced in my father’s complete healing. The doctor’s exam just confirmed what we already knew. Per the colonoscopy test results my father’s colon was clean and normal. Not just the tumor was gone, but the doctors couldn’t find any evidence of polyps there. When our God heals, he heals entirely and completely. Glory to be to His mighty Name! The devil didn’t want us to believe that the miracle had happened and he attacked my father with strong stomach pain several times, but he couldn’t shake our faith in God’s healing power, which we saw demonstrated in my father’s life. I want to use this opportunity to thank my mother for faithfully standing beside to my father and for giving him such great support and encouragement during these times of darkness. The visit of my parents here with us in Dallas was a very happy and blessed time. When they went back to Bulgaria, the doctors could not believe or understand what exactly has happened. Our Father, the doctor above all doctors said “Yes and Amen”! He decided to add more years to my father’s life, who presently serves God faithfully and is a living testimony about His mighty power!

 We would like all dark moments in our lives to have a happy end like this, wouldn’t we? But there are cases when we pray, and pray, and pray but we don’t receive the answer that we have expected from God.  That is, the answer that we think would be the best in our situation. That was the case with my brother in law (Stefan Djinov) who got a tumor in his brain and was taken home to be in God’s glory in 2000. We prayed to God so eagerly to heal Stefan, and not to take him away from us. But God had other plans – and he took him at age of 39. Some times it is so difficult to accept God’s will. We just can’t comprehend, in our limited human minds, the understanding for His almighty plan. We just see isolated pieces of the puzzle but God sees the whole picture. It is so hard for us to understand the difficulties we go through in our lives now.  But one day when all pieces of the big puzzle will come together, and we would be able to see God’s love in the midst  of all this, we will only cry out: “Blessing and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might be unto Our God for ever and ever. Amen!”   Revelation 7:12