The Story Of John Bishop From Bristol Tenn.
More than a decade and a half ago, John Bishop was experiencing headaches that took him to the hospital. He was diagnosed with meningitis, and then a month later, unexpectedly, his memory was gone.
What happens to a person, to a marriage and a family, when everything about the past has been erased?
John Bishop says you have to start back at the beginning, learning to walk, to talk, learning to love.
It was back in 1995, though, that he was diagnosed with aseptic meningitis and had to be hospitalized, and normally you recover from aseptic meningitis and life goes on.
But what happened was, it was like someone erased the chalkboard. All the memory, all of his understanding of all the basics of life were gone because of this disease.
I had forgotten everything ...My name, My wife, Everything......But in that hospital room ....The doctor said that I would mumble one word that was clear.....and that word was God. I did not know who God was. I had been saved as a young boy but I had also forgotten that.
This is a month after he's had his meningitis that he loses his complete memory. He doesn't know that he's married, he doesn't know what marriage is, he doesn't know how to talk, he doesn't know how to eat.
Donna(His wife of 24 Years) had to do everything for me, and you know what I mean, I say everything. I was like a baby. This went on for weeks and weeks. Like I say, it took me near two years to where I could walk, and I had to work at it, work at it, and so forth, but it was just incredible how good God and My wife was to me.
All 12 years. Immediately, because of the brain damage, I began having seizures, and I still have those. But I glad they not quite as bad, and then cluster migraine headaches is what I have, and that's what actually caused my blindness. They change nature, they're sort of what they call "ocular" cluster migraine. But those have been big struggles for me, and I got very depressed, very discouraged.
I wish I tell you I got sick and just said, "Oh, everything be fine," and went on. I didn't. I got very depressed and went through some very dark times, and I even prayed, "Lord, please take me home, please, because I hurt," and I felt burden for my Donna. She never tell me I burden, but I felt that way, and depressed people do.
God turned that around and helped me through those dark times. But that was mainly because of the pain issues and the seizures.
I called them issues instead of problems. They just become problem if I let them, but I've had a lot of issues, you know, to go through, but the Lord's given me grace every time.
And the key to John's faith was he had the right thoughts about who God was. He got them from the Scripture – that God is a good God. No matter what happens to us, He is still good. No matter what befalls those we love, God hasn't changed. "The most important thing you think is what you think about God."
I have a ministry called God Is Good Ministry. Many ask me how can a good God allow you to go through all this And I can now say that.......
Jesus suffered more than any of us will ever know, and if God love His Son and let Him go through that because He knew something better for everybody, I'm going to trust Him that He got something better for me and everybody, too. You can trust a God like that. He's not like many other religions that have gods that are above pain and above suffering.
Oh, God put Himself right in middle of it, and I can't always tell people I know how something feel unless I'd been through it, but I can tell them the Lord does because His Son went through the most incredible pain ever been and the reason we're here today is because He did. So I know good going to come from it because He's a good God.
He can and will turn our pain into gladness if we will put our trust in him.
Read His Complete story On Familylife.com
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