One Saturday evening in the mid-1960s I was taken to Holy Trinity church in Coventry. Billy Graham was running a Mission to London campaign, which extended to some of the major UK cities. Dad was an usher, and he took Jane, my sister, and me along with him. The place was packed. But it was only a secondary location to the main event in Coventry Cathedral. We had a TV link to the Cathedral and could see well-known personalities of the day telling us why they were there. The only names I remember now are Andrew Cruikshank (from Dr. Findley’s Casebook) and Cliff Richard. There was great excitement in Holy Trinity Church when one of the main speakers would appear in real life to speak to us directly. At the end of the evening there was a call for those who wanted to accept Christ to go forward. I went forward.
From that point forward I considered myself a Christian. Later I went through steps to affirm my faith. I was baptised in the sea in Mevagissey in Cornwall when I was 13 and followed that with a more formal confirmation service when I was 14 for which my parents bought me my first suit. I was taught that “baptism is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace”, as defined by St Augustine.
In the Spring of 1981, I had been married for a few months. We were living in a flat in Tower Hamlets in London’s East End and had started attending a new church plant based at Tower Hamlets Mission in Whitechapel. The church was dynamic, growing and well organised. A weekend retreat had been organised in High Wycombe and we were keen to go.
On the Saturday night there was a talk followed by an altar call. Something within me compelled me to go forward and I made my way to the front and knelt. I think I may have been the only one. As I was prayed for, I felt such a release and began to weep and sob. It was as if a great weight was lifted off my shoulders. I went forward because I had a hunger for God, but I also knew that I was a sinner. I was flooded with forgiveness, acceptance, love, peace, and grace. God met me in that moment, although I could not articulate it. I had been trying to be a good Christian ever since Coventry and striving for God’s acceptance. In this moment my striving ceased. This moment was significant. My career, church, family all grew from this moment. Where I had known failure and defeat, I began to see fruitfulness and growth. A long period of fruitful service stemmed from that response to God’s prompting.
But my Christian life hasn’t been one long happy, fruitful experience. There are daily temptations to overcome. There have been periods of depression, confusion and grieving following unexpected changes and loss. For example, the loss of friends, with whom I had felt close, but then our lives went in different directions. I struggle with some of my church’s teaching, where it diverges from my understanding of scripture and apostolic teaching. The local church that I attend aligns closely with my beliefs. I enjoy being on the rota to make teas and coffees each month at the end of a service. It is my way of offering something to my community, albeit quite small and insignificant in the wider scheme of things.
This time last year my wife was treated for cancer. This was followed by a course of radiography in the early part of this year. Following the radiography, she caught a virus. We went away for a few days to a hotel in the New Forest, but something was wrong. She didn’t have any energy and couldn’t walk far without needing to stop and rest. When we got home, we went to the doctor who was concerned with her high heartrate. They suggested rest, but a week later she had deteriorated further. We took her back to the doctor. Her heartrate was through the roof, and they referred her immediately to the cardiac unit in Bournemouth Hospital. They admitted her. We later discovered that she had heart failure, and her heart efficiency was down to 10-15%, despite a heartrate of 163 bpm.
She was in hospital over the Easter break. My youngest son and I popped in to visit and take her a few things from home to make her a little more comfortable. We delivered the goodies and stayed and chatted for a while, still trying to figure out what the problem was and what had caused it. It was time to leave, and we walked back to the car. We both prayed that Jacki/Mum would be healed and recover fully. It was a very informal prayer as though God was sitting in the back seat. As those who read this blog regularly will know, gradually over the next few months Jacki has improved with a cocktail of medication. She has also had a cardioversion, a reboot of the heart to knock it back into a regular routine. We are still believing for a full recovery, but we have seen such a transformation that I felt it would be appropriate to express thanks to God. I ran the Bournemouth half marathon in October primarily to give thanks to God for Jacki’s recovery and many people gave generously to sponsor me.
I have read Helen Rollason’s autobiography this week. Helen was a ground-breaking and award-winning TV and sports presenter with the BBC in the 1980s and 1990s. She was extremely driven and successful with boundless energy, even after she was diagnosed with cancer. Her official full name was Dr Helen Rollason MBE. She was also Uncle Joe’s daughter and my second cousin, who I wrote about in last Monday’s post.
I am ashamed to say that her book has sat on my bookshelf for years and I just hadn’t got round to reading it. But my recollections from last week piqued my interest. Part of me wondered whether any of our childhood visits were mentioned, but unsurprisingly they weren’t. The Ford Zephyr that Uncle Joe bought from Dad did make it into the book, though. Apparently, it broke down on them as they were heading off on their summer holidays. I also recognised her description of the house at Batheaston.
I remember hearing the news that Helen had contracted cancer and followed the story in the press. I couldn’t quite bring myself to contact her. She was facing tragic circumstances and wouldn’t want to have been bothered by a long-lost relative using her illness as an excuse to claim the attention of such a high-profile celebrity. Reading her book and hearing how she so appreciated the letters she received made me realise how wrong I was. I did pray for her, but with the benefit of hindsight I can see that we both missed out because of my timidity and false humility.
I highly recommend her book, “Life’s too Short” (Hodder & Stoughton), to anyone facing cancer. It is honest, well written and informative about how she faced up to the struggle she faced. She wrote it particularly for anyone in the early stages of cancer.
In the context of this post, I was particularly interested in her faith in God. At the early stages of the cancer, she says she did believe in God and recounts several experiences that I recognise as being encounters with God. She describes being alone in the hospital when the cancer diagnosis was first identified. She was lonely and frightened. Then she felt some strong arms around her, comforting her and calming her fears. There wasn’t anyone visible, but she felt a tangible, comforting presence. By the end of the book, she says that she didn’t believe in God, but she did believe in a force of some kind. I am sure I will meet her in heaven when it’s my time to go. And I think it will have surprised her when she did peacefully die in her sleep to be welcomed by Jesus; her reaction would have been something like, “oh, it was you all the time.”
I have just come off a 5-day fast. I undertook the fast for spiritual reasons and to pray for national and international concerns, e.g. the Israel – Gaza conflict. Physically it’s been a bit of a reset, and I am being a bit more intentional with my diet as I reintroduce food and drink. Green tea is really nice, who knew? And banana smoothies for breakfast and mid-morning snacks really give me an energy boost. Over the past 3 months I have lost nearly 2 stone, and I am fitter and healthier than I have been for a while. Mentally I’m sharper and more aware of what’s going on around me and quicker to respond. On Wednesday my son was feeling overwhelmed by school issues and returned to bed after breakfast. It was all he could do to get up and get ready for school on time. I drove him to school and before he went in, we prayed. Then after he’d gone in, I went into the school office to speak to his teacher to let them know how he was feeling. The school responded immediately and dealt with the issue. On Thursday my son was singing in the car on the way to school and on Friday he came home with a Head Teacher Award in recognition of his hard work. The situation has been transformed.
I’m not calling on anyone to engage in a 5-day fast, but I would encourage anyone reading this who feels prompted to stop right now and ask God to make himself known. And when you feel prompted, act. I did that in Coventry as an 8-year-old child, then in High Wycombe in 1981 and this week when prompted to fast. God is love and he sent Jesus to die on the cross for my sin and yours, so that we could have peace with God. I pray that you will know Immanuel, God with us, this Christmas.
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