...be of good cheer....

So, keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God…... Acts 27v25 (NIV)

OR

Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God….. Acts 27v25 (KJV)

It looked inevitable that the ship carrying Paul as he was on his way to Rome would be shipwrecked in the storm and all lives would be lost.

It took 14 days more of trials and troubles “..you have been in constant suspense…” v33

We have all at times been in seemingly impossible circumstances—whether in health, business or other of life’s experiences.

Back in 2020 just when Covid was beginning I caught it. I spent a week in bed feeling sorry for myself but not too awful. Drained, weary and weak but the truth of it was that I just went with it and slept through most of this week. Then I awoke on the Saturday feeling great, so I got up and got about stuff around the house.

I went to bed that night feeling completely drained but good for a day’s efforts and planning to do more on the Sunday. I had contacted my Director at work and told him I would be back on line on the Monday.

When I woke at 4am on the Sunday I knew something was not right, but I didn’t want to bother my wife (who also had Covid). So, I sat on the edge of the bed waiting for her to wake up. When she did at 7am she walked around my side of the bed and immediately grabbed a phone and called for an ambulance.

Apparently, I was blue/ grey in colour and my breathing was very shallow.

Within two hours of this call, I was in a medically induced coma, on a ventilator and dialysis with a collapsed lung and having suffered several hypoxic events where my oxygen saturation fell as low as 60 alongside a couple of still unexplained hyper tensive events.

I spent 18 days in this coma, a coma I didn’t realise I was in. When they brought me out of it, I suffered from sedation psychoses, convinced people were intentionally hurting me and keeping me bed ridden.

The ITU staff were amazing as they looked after me and alongside the physios, I regain the ability to walk and relearn my fine motor skills. I just about took an eye out when I tried to brush my own teeth for the first time in nearly four weeks.

That was three years ago, the recovery journey is still ongoing, and I am far from where I was pre-Covid but the Doctors still tell me they cannot explain how I survived as people who have been as ill as I was, don’t normally. I knew the global prayer that had gone on for me, the anointing with oil when the

Doctors had told my wife I was dying and had a few hours left had all played their part in the amazing healing I have known from God.

I cannot claim to have enjoyed all of what I have been through but I recognise that God has given me an amazing testimony of what He has done in my individual life. I’ve also known Him closer than ever before as I have walked the difficult path and without question, at times He has carried me.

When we turn to the Lord and His Word, God gives us the victory.

If we don’t experience the problems, we would never get to know the God who can and does solve them.