It was a special day, my
husband’s birthday and we were far from the city’s hustle but near the heart of
the Western Ghats of India. We woke up at leisure, prayed, played and got ready
for a bath at the falls nearby. We had to walk around 3 kilometres along
mountainous terrain to reach those falls. We both walked across tall grass,
cows, a dog and many different kinds of plants. As we saw the falls, we took a
dip in the cold waters. We strode back, got ready to do some sightseeing and be
on our way to board the train. This happened in the morning and we finished our
sightseeing, after which we stopped to eat. As we stopped to eat, I wanted to
change my shoes for the slipper as it was getting hotter, when I saw my bare
feet, I found a bleed. My husband and I both decided it was a leech bite which
was common in the area we visited. We travelled further, boarded our train and
in the night just before sleep, we noticed another bleed in the same area
around my feet but like before, we decided it’s nothing and went to sleep.
We had reached Chennai the next
morning and were back home safe. In the morning, we noticed a small bleed/clot
in the same area. We didn’t take it to be serious and continued to watch our
church’s online service. We had also decided to attend the session after the
service in person. It was around 2 in the afternoon, when we decided to finally
enquire about the cause of bleeding. As a first resort we went to a clinic
where the doctor was not there. So my husband contacted a friend of his who is
also a doctor with a picture of my wound. And he was alarmed and immediately
told us that it looks like a snake bite!
We both were scared as soon as we
heard it but I never experienced any symptom and I was perfectly healthy
throughout the 30 hours that had gone by.
When we look at statistics, India
accounts for over half of global snakebite deaths. Looking at my case,
(i)
If a snake that was venomous had bitten me, I
should have felt the pain.
(ii)
If a snake that was venomous had given me a dry
bite which is 25% of the times that a snake bites, even then it has to have
been painful or so the internet says.
(iii)
If a snake that was non venomous had bitten me
even then I should have felt pain
(iv)
If a snake had bitten me and it was painless it
is highly likely that the bite was poisonous and I wouldn’t have lived to tell
the story as I wouldn’t have been able to reach a government hospital which has
the anti-venom on time.
And even if I
had felt the pain like in cases from (i)-(iii), it would’ve been a near
impossible task for my husband to carry me from that 3 km trek or to have
contacted someone because there was no cell phone tower.
Point 4 is
self-explanatory.
Like you might
think now, we also thought it could have been from a spider, a beetle or
anything of the like till my puncture marks were too real and could only be
explained by a snake bite.
Continuing the
story, we went from hospital to hospital because now we knew how dangerous it
could be, and not one private hospital in the areas of Anna nagar and Mogappair
were willing to even test me. Since we had a mutual friend in one hospital who
took us in we were able to get my vitals checked after 32 hours of the probable
bite. That day we learnt that only government hospitals have the anti-venom
that needs to be administered to a snake bite victim.
That wasn’t
the only lesson I learnt, I learnt Psalm 91 in action which says, “You will
tread upon the Lion and the Cobra, you will trample the great Lion and the
Serpent.”
Also the
promise in Mark 16, where even a deadly poison cannot harm you. I understood
that God decided to not let me die on that day Oct 28th, 2023 on my
husband’s birthday because he had a reason for me to live. He wasn’t ready to
allow the life of his daughter to be taken from her. Even so, he didn’t even
want his children to be worried and spoil their holiday. He decided to cover it
up, offer peace, healing and now a story to tell the world. I couldn’t imagine
what all could’ve happened if God didn’t do any of the things He did. This
reminds me that this life is not mine but His and in His hands.
Maybe everyday
God protects us, is protecting us from a truck that should have run in our way,
from a snake that didn’t bite you, from a building that didn’t collapse and
they still are miracles. Sometimes God reveals it to us and other times He
doesn’t. With what He has revealed let us trust him for his heart, for who He
is as a person and give Him the glory He is due.
