Shortly before leaving China, K. Vatsas, a Norwegian missionary who worked with the China Inland Mission, told me the following story:
Years ago, a seven-year-old girl named Sigrid Berg lived in the Norwegian capital, Oslo. One day, a classmate pushed her down the stone stairs of the school building. At first, Sigrid did not seem badly injured. However, instead of getting better, she kept getting worse and worse. She was diagnosed with a degenerative hip disease, which soon progressed to the point of her needing crutches to get around; sometime later, she became confined to her bed.
Several doctors were involved in her treatment, for instance using tubes to drain toxic fluid from her hip. Nevertheless, the disease continued to progress, eventually damaging her spine and leaving one half of her body paralyzed. Even her speech was affected. After her fall, one leg stopped growing, ending up a few centimeters shorter than the other. To keep the leg straight, a sandbag was attached to it; to maintain her posture, a strap was attached to her shoulder and tied to the bed. Her hair fell out on the paralyzed side. She could not eat solid food, instead receiving fluid through a tube.
She was in this state for about two years, during which things slowly got worse. The doctors eventually gave up her case as hopeless, although they continued to treat her.
Sigrid was a frequent topic of prayer. At one point, Bolzius, a Swedish man of faith, visited Oslo. God had already healed many people in answer to his prayers, and the preacher of her parents’ church brought Bolzius to their home to pray for her. He fell on his knees and began to pray. Suddenly, he got up and said, “There is nothing for me to do here.” With his large hands he stroked her hair and said, “My little girl, you’re going to Jesus.” Then he said goodbye and left.
One day, some time after these events, Sigrid read the 53rd chapter of the Book of Isaiah in her Norwegian Bible. Especially the fourth verse spoke to her, as she read, “Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering” (World English Bible). She called her mother over and said, “Mother, Jesus carried our sickness and our sins on the cross. Do I still have to stay sick?”
From that day on, Sigrid began to believe that the Lord would heal her. Another day, she read in Matthew 9:35 that Jesus healed sickness and diseases. She called to her mother again and asked, “Is Jesus the same as when He was on Earth?” The mother replied, “In His time, He will come.” But Sigrid understood it a little differently. She thought her mother had said, “If He has time, He will come.”
Thinking Jesus was very busy and would only come when He had some time, she asked her mother to get her dress and put it over a chair next to her bed so that she could get up and get dressed quickly when Jesus came to heal her.
One day, while Sigrid was alone in her room, a bright white light broke through the ceiling and lit up the room. At that moment, the child heard a voice say, “Sigrid, you can get up, you’re healed.”
Sigrid replied, “But the sandbag is tied to my leg.” In response, the sandbag came loose and fell off her leg. As soon as she understood what was happening, she jumped out of bed and stood up on the floor. Her legs were the same length now too! Sigrid began to jump with joy.
Perhaps having heard the racket, her mother opened the door. Seeing her, Sigrid shouted joyfully, “Mother, my legs are the same length now! Jesus healed me!”
That same day, the mother and her little girl went to her doctor’s house to show him what had happened. The child ran the entire route of over three kilometers to her doctor, Professor Nicolaisen’s house. When he saw the girl, he shouted, “That’s a miracle!”
Years later, Sigrid Berg went to the Moody Bible Institute in the USA to prepare herself as a missionary for China. However, before she went to China, she returned to Norway to visit her family. During this time, a number of doctors were meeting in Oslo. Professor Nicolaisen told some of them about the sudden healing that had happened years ago. To prove his testimony, he invited Sigrid to come to his house with him and show this particular case to his colleagues. She agreed.
The doctors undertook a thorough examination, which included X-rays. They also investigated the findings recorded at the time and examined the symptoms of this case, which had been written down by her doctors back then. After the thorough examination, they found that the young woman was completely healthy. And not only that—one miracle followed the other, with the cellular tissue on one side being ten years younger than that on the other. Sigrid had just turned ten when she was healed.
The young woman then went to China as a missionary. Some years later, she returned to Norway on vacation. One day, she saw a woman with crutches sitting on a bench at the foot of a hill. Having once been reliant on crutches herself, she could empathize with this stranger. She started up a conversation and learned that this woman had lived for many years as a missionary in Africa. It was Malla Moe, whose name is well known in Norway and in other countries. In the course of their conversation, Moe bemoaned her own lack of faith, saying that, while in Africa, she had read about a sudden healing experienced by a little girl in Norway and wishing that she had that girl’s faith.
Sigrid, who was then Mrs. G. Vatsas, replied, “I’m the little girl who was cured back then.” About one year later, Malla Moe was healed herself.
George T. B. Davis
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