My Testimony

I grew up with my mum and my brother who is a year younger than me. My mum and dad got divorced when I was little and my dad disappeared out of my life. I don’t remember anything about my dad. When I was 7 years old, my mum started taking my brother and I to church each Sunday where I also attended Brownies and a group called Christian Endeavour.

I went away to a children’s camp when I was 11 years old. During the last evening meeting, we were told about what Jesus had done during that first Easter. I had heard the Easter story many times before but this time I was told how Jesus actually suffered all that pain and went to that cross for me personally – something that was new to me which left me with many questions. I asked our leader during our Quiet Time that evening my questions. I couldn’t believe that I had been going to church for so long, knew so many stories from the Bible but that no one had ever told me that those stories were actually true – I thought that they were just stories. That night I learned how Jesus had actually suffered and died for ME, how he had taken the blame for all the wrong things that I had done so that I could be forgiven and reunited with God. I also learned that becoming a Christian didn’t mean that life would become an easy ride and all my problems would disappear but that Jesus would always be with me in those problems. The theme chorus we’d been singing all week was “I serve a risen Saviour”.

I serve a risen Saviour
He’s in the world today
I know that He is living
Whatever men may say
I see His hand of mercy
I hear his voice of cheer
And just the time I need Him
He’s always near

He lives, He lives
Christ Jesus lives today
He walks with me and talks with me
Along life’s narrow way
He lives, He lives
Salvation to impart
You ask me how I know he lives?
He lives within my heart

A. H. Ackley

The last 2 lines of the chorus kept going over and over in my head “You ask me how I know he lives? He lives within my heart” and I knew deep down that I wanted that to be true for me. That night I asked Jesus to come into my life.

When I was 14, my brother suddenly started collapsing – the doctors didn’t know why. One night, my mum woke me up to tell me she was going to hospital with my brother. My brother was ill again and the doctor who attended had called for an ambulance. My brother’s lung had collapsed. He was in hospital for about a week while his lung was inflated and we were told not to worry – that it wouldn’t collapse again. But his lung did keep collapsing, despite having numerous chest drains and stress plates put on his lung. My brother had been in hospital for 2 months now and the doctors still couldn’t keep his lung inflated. The whole time, I was very worried and I had so many questions for God. Would my brother die? If he lived, would he ever be able to live a normal life? Why was he so ill and not me? Why does God heal some people and not others?

My mum was also taken into hospital at this time with severe stomach pains and remained there for about a month while tests were carried out to find the cause. Now I was worried about my mum too. By now I was living with my nana, going home twice a day to walk and feed the dog (because my nana lived in a flat), I had school and homework to do, visiting 2 different hospitals each day (my brother was in a children’s hospital), I was very tired and didn’t know what the future held. At one point, I really believed that both my mum and brother were going to die. I didn’t understand why God allowed things that can hurt so much to happen, especially my mum and my brother being ill at the same time. Although I found things very difficult both physically and emotionally, I knew that God was with me in all of it. I felt so close to God and at times, I had so much peace about things, even though in a very real sense, my world was falling apart and I really didn’t know what the future held for me or my family. I couldn’t tell anyone how I was feeling but despite this, so many people would come and say things to me which would be “just right” for me at that particular time. Things which only God knew about. My mum was finally diagnosed as having a duodenal ulcer and allowed home with medication whilst my brother’s lung was stitched to his breastbone to keep it inflated.

About a year later, I was baptised in the spirit at school one Friday lunchtime. I was so full of joy. My teacher who led the Christian Union said I should tell the pastoral assistant at my church about this and that I should also watch out because the devil wouldn’t be happy and may try to destroy what God wanted to do. I went shopping for my nana after school and called in to tell the pastoral assistant about what had happened that day. She was really exited for me, but also said I should watch out for Satan. I remember telling her that there was absolutely nothing that Satan could do to ME to take away this joy. Then I went to drop the shopping off at my nana’s. When I reached my nana’s she told me that my brother’s other lung had collapsed and he had been taken into hospital. His lung had collapsed at the same I was being baptised in the spirit. I was devastated. I then believed that it was my fault that he was ill. As I saw things, there was nothing that Satan could do to ME – so he had simply done it to my brother instead. For 3 days, I felt really guilty that my brother’s other lung had collapsed. Finally, I broke down in church on the Sunday. The pastoral assistant explained to me that my brother’s lung didn’t collapse because I was baptised in the spirit but that I was baptised in the spirit because God knew that I would need the extra strength to cope with what lay ahead and that Satan was twisting the facts to his advantage.

Over the next few weeks, the doctors were unable to inflate my brother’s lung and so this also had to be stitched to his breastbone as his other one had. Previously, he had been transferred to another hospital across the other side of Manchester for the operation and we had visited him some hours after the operation. When his second lung was stitched, the operation was performed locally so I saw him soon after he had come out of the recovery room. I’ll never forget seeing him lying there. The blood and the tubes didn’t bother me but it was the expression of agony on his face with every breath he took despite being on a morphine pump. Why couldn’t it be me lying there instead of him? I was so worried that he would die. After 3 or 4 hours, he began to breathe more normally and I felt more reassured. Over the next few weeks, his lungs improved.

When I was 16, my mum was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Mums health rapidly deteriorated and she became more dependant on me as a caretaker. As my “A” levels were approaching, mum was waiting to be admitted into hospital to have her tablets changed under observation to see if she could have a better quality of life – she now only had 2 hours a day when she could control her own movements. The day before my first “A” level exam, mum finally went into hospital. While in hospital, she started with severe stomach pains again. I asked one of the doctors if it could be her ulcer and was told “no, the pains were in the wrong place”. Two days before my last “A” level exam, the police came to get my brother and I and asked us to go to the hospital straight away. We were told that my mum had collapsed and was bleeding badly internally. Her ulcer had burst and had badly damaged a major blood vessel. For over 4 hours, we waited for news. She was given 4 units of blood before she was strong enough to be operated on. When she went into theatre, she was breathing on her own. When she came out, she couldn’t breath on her own and shortly afterwards, she died. I couldn’t believe it. She only went into hospital to have her tablets changed. The last time I saw my mum was the night before she died. She seemed to be so much better with her movements and was so much happier than I had seen her in over a year. I really believed that she was getting better. We had stayed with her for over an hour after visiting time was over and finally the nurse had asked us to leave that night. I am so grateful for that extra time I spent with my mum. That was the last time I saw her and it was a really happy time – something we hadn’t shared for a long time. The day before my last “A” level exam, I was with an undertaker, arranging my mums funeral.

We had been to so many healing meetings, had people pray for my mum and seen other people get healed, but I watched my mum deteriorate before my eyes on a daily basis. My mum was so frightened of the future and what was going to happen to her. As my mums health got worse, her friends gradually stopped coming to visit because they didn’t like to see her shaking so much, unable to do anything, so, in the last few months, the only people she saw were mine and my brother’s friends. Because my mum had no one else to confide in, she regularly used to ask me what was going to happen to her. She would sob uncontrollably and I would hold her and tell her not to worry, that God had everything in hand because he loved her and he would look after her. When she felt a bit better, I would go to my room and cry out to God, asking Him what was going to happen to my mum. I was also frightened of the future for her and for me as I was finding things increasingly difficult to cope with at home.

I really struggled to understand why God had allowed these things to happen for about the next 7 years before I finally tried to blot them out and forget the pain. A year last December, my minister preached a sermon on Ephesians 3:14-21. Verses 16-18 say…

“I ask God through the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves, and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God’s people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep is Christ’s love.”

These verses reminded me of when I knew so much “how broad and long, how high and deep is Christ’s love.” It was only this that held everything together when mum and Dave were so ill, when mum died and in the months and years that followed. It also reminded me of a time 2 months before mum died. My best friend stayed and looked after my mum so that I could visit friends in Lincolnshire for the weekend. We went to the Friday Fellowship (youth group) that evening and at the last moment, the leader said she had changed what she was going to talk about because she believed God wanted us to be “true to our feelings”. I had travelled over 100 miles to be told this. I knew that God was speaking to me, but I couldn’t cope any more. I had already had 2 different social workers trying to persuade me to put my mum into a home that year but I just couldn’t do that. My mum now had just 2 hours a day when she could control her movements after she had taken her tablets. The rest of the time, all she could do was to sit in the chair and shake uncontrollably. And then the leader said that God wanted me to be true to my feelings. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what I was feeling. I was emotionally and physically exhausted and so frightened about what was going to happen to my mum and on top of that, my “A” level exams were soon to start. The only way I could get through each day was to blot out my feelings. After my minister’s sermon, I really felt God saying again that He wanted me to be true to my feelings and deal with my past, that without dealing with these things, I couldn’t be the person God wants me to be. So that day, I asked God to “deal with my past”.

The last year has been quite difficult for me. God has been reminding me and working on things that happened in my past – mum, my brother and other things too. A lot of tears have been shed and memories unearthed which I would rather have preferred to keep buried. There has been a lot of pain but there has also been a lot of healing too and it really has been a roller coaster ride for me.

Last Monday, we went to a park in Essex. We walked around the lake there and as I was walking, a tree caught my attention. It was right on the edge, leaning into and overhanging the lake with it’s branches spread out above. A duck bobbed in the water beneath the canopy of the tree and the branches of the tree seemed to form a “hand” shape, sheltering and protecting the duck beneath. The water reflected the “protective hand” shape but at times as the water moved about, it was very difficult to make out exactly what the reflection was of. (Unfortunately, the duck swam off before we got a picture of it). It reminded me very much of 1 Corinthians 13:12…

“What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete – as complete as God’s knowledge of me.”

It made me realize that God’s hand of protection is always over me but at the moment, I am unable to look up and see those branches covering me. For now, I can only gaze on the reflection and when the water is stirred up around me by difficult situations that life may bring, sometimes I fail to see that reflection. It’s not that God has left me, just that the image I see is not so clear at the moment. I felt God saying that in those times, I need to trust in him. Sometimes God will use other people to help me but my dependency needs to remain on God – not on other people.

I still don’t know why God allowed mum and my brother to be so ill, mum to die so suddenly and many other things that happened too. But I do know that during those times, God remained so close to me, providing me with the strength, support and encouragement I needed to get through. And I do know that that peace that passes all understanding is REAL. I don’t have everything all worked out. Often I don’t trust God enough but God is patient with me and I am still learning.
*Scriptures and additional materials quoted are from the Good News Bible © 1994, 2004 published by the Bible Societies/HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., UK Good News Bible © American Bible Society 1966, 1971, 1976, 1992. Used with permission.