As many of my friends age, an increasing number are spending time in the hospital. My heart goes out to them because I know a lot about this, having spent extensive time in the hospital since experiencing kidney failure in 1999.

Being unwell and hospitalized is tough. You have to endure the pain and side effects of your condition and medical procedures, loneliness, uncertainty about your health and future, the stress on your family, and more.

One thing I’ve learned through my many stays in the hospital and more than 1,500 visits for dialysis and other issues is that many of the other patients I meet are going through similar difficulties. I believe one very important reason the Lord allowed me to be there was so I could be a witness to them. Here is one example.

I met a Japanese woman in the dining room of the hospital. She was in her late thirties and had also suffered kidney failure, and although she’d received a transplant, she was experiencing complications and faced an uncertain outcome. She had been hospitalized for quite some time and was very lonely and depressed. She and her husband live on an island, and the distance made it difficult for him to visit her.

I witnessed to her, and she received the Lord gladly. Her transformation was obvious. For the remainder of my stay, she was absolutely radiant! When I was discharged, I gave her a Japanese Bible, and we kept in touch. Eventually, she was discharged and returned home to be with her husband. We would meet during our monthly follow-up appointments with the transplant specialists to check our kidney function, and she was indeed a true convert. She wrote me a beautiful letter thanking me for helping her and expressing how much her life had changed for the better after receiving Jesus.

To be the instrument the Lord used to bring salvation and transformation to this Japanese woman was a beautiful and rewarding experience.

I would rather not have had my chronic illness and the many visits and stays in the hospital. There have been countless hours when all I could do was fight for my own life and health, and I had no strength to reach out to others. But there have also been many opportunities to minister to my fellow sufferers, despite my own suffering.

“Who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”—2 Corinthians 1:4