I saw just how devastating loss of faith can be during a recent visit to one of Durban's largest hospitals, where I do volunteer work a few days each week.

Before each visit, I pray for the Lord to lead me to those He wants me to meet, those who are most in need of His love and comfort. This time it was a cancer patient and his wife.

The man was sitting on his bed alone when I entered the room. His face lit up when I offered him a gospel poster--and what a beautiful light that was! The cancer had wracked his jaw, and surgeons had performed reconstructive surgery, using half of his tongue and bone from one of his ribs. He was unable to speak, but his face continued to shine as he conveyed through impromptu sign language that he would die soon and go to Heaven.

A few moments later, his wife came in. She did not share his faith and optimism. Bitterness had eaten away at her spirit like a cancer. She had been a Christian once, she said, but had lost her faith "when the Lord forsook her." To her way of thinking, surely He had forsaken her; surely He didn't love her, or He never would have let her suffer all that she had. As she told her story, my heart was filled with compassion for her.

Her problems hadn't changed in the space of those couple of hours, but she had found the faith to face them.

She was only in her early fifties, but had already lost her first husband and all four of her children. When this man, her second husband, had become sick a few years ago, he had had to sell his business and she had had to stop working in order to care for him. Now they had absolutely nothing left. She needed medical care herself, but couldn't even pay the two-dollar registration fee at this public hospital.

I gave her some money and told her it was a token of the Lord's love for her. Then as she continued to tell me about her problems, I listened and tried to assure her of the Lord's love. "Even though we sometimes don't understand His ways," I said, "He has promised to never leave or forsake us. In the end we will see that He was true to His promise."

After an hour, her face began to brighten, and by the time I had to leave, the dying ember of her faith had been fanned back to life. "Faith comes from God's Word, the Bible," I explained. "That Book is full of promises from your heavenly Father, promises that you can claim for yourself and your husband when you pray." I also gave her a list of key verses to take home, read, think about, and claim.

Her problems hadn't changed in the space of those couple of hours, but she had found the faith to face them. To her husband's delight, her bitterness and fear had been replaced by faith in her loving, caring Savior.