No legs, yet on his knees

Irina’s husband, Mikhail, was like most of the people in their small Russian village; a person who would go from one drinking party to another. “He seldom beat me," she says, "only when he was drunk.” But that changed for the worse after she accepted Jesus Christ. “My faith really angered him,” she recalls.

“If he saw me praying or reading the Bible, he would beat me. He hit me almost every day.”

Mikhail descended deeper into sullen drinking binges that would last for days. His health rapidly declined when his alcoholism and diabetes collided. It became necessary to have both of his legs amputated. After the operation and now stuck in a wheelchair, Mikhail stubbornly continued to get drunk every day. One day, Irina and the children could no longer withstand his abuse, and left him home, drunk with his friends.

Forgivness

Worried about her husband, she returned home in fear, two days later. What she found was a miracle. Her husband was on the floor, crying and begging her for forgiveness, telling her that Jesus had forgiven him.

In a drunken stupor, Mikhail had passed out and fallen from his wheelchair. As he struggled to get up, he pulled a cloth off a table, and his wife’s Bible fell to the floor. He began reading it, and accepted the Lord.

“Today we are the happiest family on earth,” says Irina. “We are all with the Lord. What Satan meant for evil, God meant for good. The Lord used my husband’s illness to help him find salvation!”