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"I Have Heard Your Prayer"

May 22, 2015
Aline Rodrigues

Aline Rodrigues

Aline Rodrigues was devastated. Her husband, Rodrigo, lay in a hospital bed in Piraquara, Brazil with a three percent chance of survival.

The doctor told her: "His kidneys, liver and spleen are no longer working; he is having respiratory failure." He gave the somber diagnosis: "aortic dissection."

“I cried so much that I curled myself under the sink and cried out to God not to take my beloved husband before he came to know Christ,” Rodrigues remembers.

She waited at his side for nearly eight hours until Rodrigo Rodrigues could be transferred to another hospital for surgery.

"Meanwhile I started looking for a handkerchief in my purse and at that moment I found the Disque Paz (Dial Peace) card."

Three days earlier, her neighbor, Jorge, who helped Rodrigo when he first fell ill, had given her the card. It contained a phone number and instructions for listening to a devotional message produced by Back to God Ministries Portuguese outreach.

Because Aline Rodrigues was on her way to the hospital when the neighbor gave her the card, she had just dropped the small card into her purse.

Now, having discovered the card through her tears, she called and heard a message that resonated with her. "It was about how a woman can be a support to her husband," Rodrigues recalls. "I heard the message and glorified God for that answer."

She went back and stayed by Rodrigo's bed, where he lay in an induced coma. "I began to pray and speak aloud about that message. I said to my beloved one, 'Trust in the Lord that you will return to us. Trust me because I am your support, your pillar.'"

Immediately, a tear rolled from Rodrigo's right eye.

Aline made a covenant with God. She prayed: "My family is being reborn in your presence and it is in the center of your will that we want to be. Lord, the best day for Rodrigo to wake up is the day of his birthday."

In fact, two weeks later—on his birthday—when Aline Rodrigues arrived at the hospital, Rodrigo woke up. He smiled and said, "I love you."

That same week he told Aline: "I have heard your prayers to God and your promise to be my support."

Aline Rodrigues praised God at that moment. "I realized he was surrendered to the father's will."

God spared Rodrigo's life for four more months. "In the hospital we had great experiences with God," she testifies. "When he died, I knew that he was in glory."