Nabeel Qureshi’s Wife: I Prayed for My Husband’s Resurrection Until His Burial
The widow of the late Christian apologist and New York Times best-selling author Nabeel Qureshi has shared lessons that God has taught her in the wake of her husband's death and explained that she continued to pray for her husband's resurrection in the seven days before he was buried.
Having lost her 34-year-old husband to cancer on Sept. 16, Michelle Qureshi took to her husband's YouTube video blog to publicly share her thoughts and emotions just days after the burial.
"As you know, I and our prayer group and Nabeel, and many others around the country and the world were praying for healing — some even a step further than that. Even after Nabeel's death, we continued to pray for resurrection," Qureshi explained. "That's something we can go into at a later time. I don't regret any of it because I believe it's purely from Scripture that we do such things."
Qureshi said that it was about seven days from the time her husband was pronounced dead at the hospital until he was finally buried.
"Aside from this drive that I felt from the Holy Spirit to pray for Nabeel's resurrection after the time of death was called, I had my own personal drive," she continued. "For seven days I was wrestling and praying for resurrection. After a while ... in circumstances like these, you realize that you can only rely on the Word of God, the one thing that is unchangeable."
Qureshi explained that it was a woman in her prayer group that pointed out when Jesus sent out his disciples he told them to "heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons."
The Bible tells of different accounts in which people have been raised from the dead. In one instance told in Acts, the Apostle Paul helped raise Eutychus from the dead after he fell from a third-story window.
"I am a disciple of Christ. I choose to be obedient in what He says," Qureshi asserted. "I don't have everything ironed out. I just know I don't regret a moment of what we did. I would do it all over again, regardless of having this outcome."
Qureshi described the moment that her husband's death really sank in.
"As I watched the bulldozer push the last remaining part of the dirt into Nabeel's grave, that was the seal right there," Qureshi said. "I came to a point where I said, 'I am going to continue to pray for resurrection as long as Nabeel's body is above the ground.' So when his body was below the ground and this time of closing and battling for Nabeel's life was over, this thought came to me that I am fully convinced that God will use this death to a more glorious end we would have seen if Nabeel were still alive."
Now that she is without a husband and will have to raise their daughter, Ayah, without Nabeel, Qureshi explained that she is putting all her faith in the Lord to provide for their needs. Although she is a "widow" and a "single mom," Qureshi said she will not identify by those descriptors.
"While yes, I will use them on official paperwork and communication as descriptors, what God is really helping me to focus on first and foremost is that I am a child of the Most High King and He provides for the needs that are associated with the descriptors of 'widow' and 'single mom,'" she added. "It is in that identity that I can find strength and it is in that identity that I can find security despite my circumstances."
Qureshi said it was in June when her husband's pain began to get much worse and she began to feel less like his wife and more like his caretaker.
"My expectations of Nabeel began to be exposed. As I was crying out to God during that time, He reminded me of how Scripture says, 'My God will supply all of your needs according to the glorious riches in Christ Jesus,'" she said. "That has been true all of my life. But to hear it now and to realize moving forward since God does not change, moving forward He will continue to supply to all of my needs."
One way in which the Lord has already provided for Qureshi and her daughter is from the over $860,000 raised from over 6,000 donations to her husband's GoFundMe page.
Qureshi admitted that although God used her husband to be a "conduit" to provide for their needs, it was hard when she came to the realization "that things that I thought I could lean on and the things I thought would be true are different."
"Even if God told me why, I probably wouldn't be able to grasp His reasons with my finite mind because He is God with a plan, with intricacies that span the entire universe through all time, and I am one tiny little thread on a tapestry," Qureshi explained. "I really don't think I would understand if He said why."
"His plan is going to bring much greater glory than the one I had in mind because that is what He is about," Qureshi explained.
Qureshi said that she is reminded of Jesus' cries and prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane.
"It's not that God didn't listen to Jesus in the garden. It's that His bigger plan to make Jesus' torturous death on the cross the most beautiful turning point in History. Because He died, we live," Qureshi said. "Death is even a redeemable thing. It's not beyond God to use death for His greater purposes of glorifying Himself and showing His love to the world He created."
Nabeel Qureshi, the author of Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus and No God But One, posted over 40 video blogs after he was diagnosed with cancer in August 2016 up until the weekend before he died.
Qureshi's open sharing of his faith in the year leading up to his death has touched hundreds of lives all while glorifying Christ, as Qureshi's friend, David Wood, of Acts 17 Apologetics has pointed out.
"Many of the comments I have seen, hundreds of them, were from people who said they have never met Nabeel but still feel like they knew him, like he was their friend," Wood said in a YouTube video. "That is one cool outcome of Nabeel sharing his life story then blogging his journey with cancer."
One YouTube user explained in a comment that "Nabeel's testimony and videos helped me to discover the Truth in Jesus who is the Lord."
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