A surgeon came in.
He told us that we should
leave Sarah, leave our baby in the hospital
and to walk away from her.
Not to bond with her.
Don't feed her...
Just leave her, walk away
and have other children.
And to hear that kind of advice
from a doctor, from a surgeon...
We were in a total daze
and shock that our child wouldn't live.
I believe my great-grandfather
was the first Jewish ostrich farmer
of South Africa
My grandfather always wore
this special hat
he'd also put on the tefillin
the phylacteries around his his arm
and around his head.
He would take me to the synagogue
on Shabbat.
As a young boy, it's coming up to
my bar mitzvah
The rabbi made a speech
and he got up and he said
"Well, it's a shame that Lawrence is not"
"as good at Hebrew as he is at rugby."
So I was the sportsman in the family
my brother Alan, on the other hand,
was more of the philosopher,
the thinker.
When my brother came home from
an army pass on the weekend
he had this Bible and some literature
and my brother and I
shared a bedroom together.
So he hid that literature under his bed.
I'm not really sure how this happened
but my parents found that Bible
and I was really quite shocked to see
their response to my brother's interest
and I'd never seen my dad cry before
but I saw him cry.
My brother put it aside and
vowed not to to think about Jesus again.
I met Louise when I was 15
and she was 14.
Even at a young age, talking about
one day when we get married...
and she had agreed that if
we ever did get married, that she
would convert and become Jewish.
It was at that time
that Jews in South Africa
were wondering about the future
and a lot of Jews decided
to go to Australia.
I had to consider leaving behind
my beautiful girlfriend.
And that was extremely traumatic
so I had a little deal with God:
God, if you'd bring us back together,
if we could see each other again
I would become a good Jew
and that will bring up our children
to be good Jews.
And in that year things really
began to change...
My brother,
once we had come to Australia,
started to think about Jesus once again.
He became a very
strong believer in Jesus.
He had a very supernatural encounter
with God.
His life was completely changed.
He was saying things like,
"I really love Jesus,"
"Jesus has changed my life."
And I thought that was very odd.
First of all, because
Jesus was a man
and he lived 2,000 years ago,
and I couldn't understand this love
that they shared for one another.
Not only that, of course,
Jesus was dead,
so how could he love Jesus?
It really didn't make any sense to me.
He just said, "Listen Lawrence,"
"I want to read to you..."
He started to read about
this man who had been
rejected by his people,
who had come to suffer and die for
the sins of others, not his own.
And after he had read
the Scripture to me
I said to him, "Well, that's obviously"
"all about Jesus"
"and that must be in the New Testament."
Well of course he was very quick to show
me that he had just read from
the Prophet Isaiah, chapter 53.
the Prophet who wrote
700 years before Jesus.
I was really struck with that prophecy.
It was a prophecy that really
made me think
that there is some truth to what
my brother was sharing with me.
That made me feel very uncomfortable.
I always felt a very strong connection
with my Jewish identity,
and here I was being confronted with
the truth about Jesus being the Messiah.
I started to to think to myself,
really Jesus could be
our "Moshiach", our Jewish Messiah,
and if he is well, then I had to,
as a Jew, believe in Him.
And so I came to a point when
the opinion of God
became more important to me
than the opinion of my people.
That was very difficult because
I was worried about what
would my mom and dad think?
What would my family think,
if I went the same way as my brother?
But that night I prayed to accept Jesus
as my Moshiach.
That was the day that my life
completely changed.
I phoned Louise.
She's back in South Africa,
and I shared with her, I said,
"Look, Louise, I got something to tell you,"
"I prayed to accept Jesus as my Messiah."
And I was totally shocked at her response.
She said, "So have I."
Louise and I never talked about it
so we didn't really know what
was going on behind the scenes.
And in that first year as I was
coming closer and considering faith
in Jesus as the Messiah,
so Louise was back in South Africa.
And we were totally amazed how God
kind of entered into our lives,
revealed the Messiah to us
at the very same time.
Several months later
we got married under a chuppah
in South Africa
Louise became pregnant and
she had a very normal pregnancy
and eventually Sarah was born,
but when Sarah was born she didn't cry.
The doctor came in to to speak to us
he told us that Sarah was born with
no brain and he said,
"Well, we don't think Sarah will live."
"She'll probably only live 2 or 3 days."
Which of course, those words
went right over our heads
we were totally shocked
at what we were hearing.
We knew in our hearts though that
we couldn't just walk away from Sarah.
So we took her home the very next day.
Sarah was very unwell.
Louise, as a beautiful mother, was
just praying that, "God, let Sarah live!"
"Let there be a miracle."
"Let Sarah be healed."
I was angry with God
in the first couple of years.
I had to try and understand
where was God?
I knew that Sarah was going to live,
and I can't tell you for sure
that I was happy about that at first
to my shame
I was really asking God to take her.
I didn't really want to go through
a difficult time, and God began to
use Sarah in a most amazing way
in our lives.
The doctor had said
that Sarah would be a vegetable.
That she wouldn't smile.
And the first time she smiled,
she smiled at me.
And she really melted my heart
and I really had felt like perhaps,
you know,
like a murderer, that I wanted her to die.
I didn't want her to live.
And I really repented of that
because I knew God had
a special purpose for Sarah's life
to do something deep within me
to do something in us as a family.
Sarah today is 27 years old,
and yet Sarah's life has spoken so much
to us and to others, even though
she herself has never spoken a word.
I came to realize though
that God works through difficult times
in our lives in very powerful ways.
That he actually speaks to us louder
through our suffering than he does
through our pleasures.
Sarah's disability has taught us
so much about it.
God has taught us so much about life.
Life is not perfect.
There's a lot of challenges.
I think there's one thing that is common
to all humanity, and that is suffering.
And he uses all these things in our lives
to speak to us in very profound ways,
and that makes God very impressive
the way that he can actually use
difficult life circumstances
to teach us, and to mold us
and to make us into, God-willing,
better human beings.
