Nina As Good as Dead, Part 1

Nina clutched the Bible close to her chest. Tears poured out of her like a pot boiling over. Her little body shook. “Oh, God!” The words seemed to burst out of the deepest, darkest part of her.

Why didn’t He want her? Why? The wail was the loneliest, saddest note—she felt like an orphaned child all alone on a cold city street.

Nina was raised in China’s remote countryside.

But something about Nina made her different from all the other people in her village—she was divorced, and instead of a husband, she had a two- month-old daughter. She had no money and no job. People would avoid her; her father would drink and then ridicule her; and everyone was embarrassed by her. To them, she was worse than the filth on the sidewalk.

Nina’s mother believed in the God of the Bible and took Nina to a church where members assembled on Sundays. After several visits, Nina also came to believe that there was a God. She desperately wanted to be baptized into her mother’s church. She asked three times, but each time she was denied. The members had learned that she was a divorced woman; she was, as they said, a sinner who would be a noxious stain upon their congregation. They would not baptize her; neither was she welcome there anymore.

Nina went home and pressed her Bible close to her and cried as though her heart would break. Even God did not want her. For days she did this. But a strange thing would happen every time. As she sat there sobbing, she would see Someone—a face she did not know—smiling down at her, and somehow she knew what the smile meant. It meant that that Someone was there for her. It made no sense, but she hugged the memory close.

Time passed, and one day, as her father was screaming at her yet again, something in her broke. “You are as good as dead,” he ranted. And she felt like she wanted to die.

But something stopped her. Something compelled her to go to the computer instead and get on the Internet. In the search bar she typed the words “preaching by pastors” and there, at the top of the list, was a video by an American pastor.

Reflect: Have you ever felt unwanted? You can be assured that Jesus wants you very much. In fact, Christ died in order to have you.

Key Bible Texts

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31 KJV)