Fabrice Muanda’s remarkable story

Posted in Blog, Christianity

Fabrice Muamba was on a BBC Radio 5Live special talking about his recovery from a heart attack.

In the half-hour-long interview, Muamba spoke to Reading striker Jason Roberts about how he’s coming to terms with the situation – having suffered a heart attack on the pitch, technically died, made a remarkable recovery, and been told he’ll never play football again – and the role of faith in his life.

At one point, the conversation turned to the Bible:

Roberts: Shauna (Muamba’s then fiancée, now wife) said that she read Psalms to you every day, because you read the Bible every day. Did you hear any of them?

Muamba: …she sat next to me and she read the Bible [to] me…Whenever it came to about 8 o’clock or 9 o’clock, everybody would have to leave my room…she would read a Psalm and then my dad would come in and we would all pray together…that’s how my evening was every single day.

He went on to add ‘you can’t carry your car with you, you can’t carry your wallet with you, you can’t carry your money with you…but your family and God, what’s important – that’s always going to be important.’

Like Muamba’s family, people have often turned to the Psalms – with their incredibly honest and poetic expressions of emotion – in tough times. The 91st regiment during WWI reportedly read Psalm 91 each day; President Obama read Psalm 46 at a 9/11 memorial ceremony in 2011.

Muamba didn’t mention any specific Psalms in the interview, but maybe this one expresses something of what he might be feeling now:

I lift up my eyes to the hills.

    From where does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord,

    who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;

    he who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel

    will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;

    the Lord is your shade on your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,

    nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;

    he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep

    your going out and your coming in

    from this time forth and for evermore.

Psalm 121 (ESV)

Listen to the interview in full at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nt1w2

 

Article photo CC from Ronnie Macdonald on Flickr