Up until the age of 13 my life had been a piece of cake. I excelled academically at school and I’d always been very fit and healthy. When I was 12 I started playing rugby and cycled the 5 miles to my secondary school all year except the winter – I was used to it. I didn’t have much of a concept of suffering beyond a rainy day and the occasional sickness bug. From time to time I would see starving children on the news and be saddened by the injustice of it all but these feelings only lasted a few minutes and then I continued with my rushing around doing all the things I did. As a family we started to sponsor a poor Indian boy and I was glad that we could do something to help but it still didn’t make me think much about what it must be like to really suffer. I was just too busy trying to get as much out of life as I could.
My sister and I had been brought up by loving Christian parents in a big and lively church where it was hard not to notice God at work. I remember meeting with several hundred people every Sunday and worshiping God with modern and diverse music which seemed so different to the old fashioned hymns we were made to sing at my C of E primary school over and over again. We often heard people give account of how God had made an amazing positive difference in their lives and how some were dedicating their lives to helping people worse off than themselves.
They always made learning about God fun and interesting for children; they didn’t make the children sit through a talk geared for adults; after worshipping together the children went out into another room.
At times I felt the presence of God very strongly and things would happen that were so extraordinary that you could only really call them “supernatural” – what my dictionary defines as, “of or relating to things beyond the laws of nature.” One example involved a friend of my sister called Mary-Anne who had her leg broken when she was hit by a bus while on a bicycle. She spent six months in hospital with her leg in traction but despite that her leg healed incorrectly so that it was about 2 inches shorter than the other one which gave her a bad limp – I used to see her walking around with it. Then they made her a special extended shoe so that she could walk normally. A while later we were at one of our church meetings when a few people came and prayed that Mary-Anne’s leg would become normal “in Jesus’ name”. My sister was watching and saw Mary-Anne’s leg suddenly jolt and appear to extend. She immediately found she could walk normally without her special shoe (with just socks on). My sister later observed stretch marks on the skin of Mary-Anne’s leg and her G.P. was so incredulous that he got out a tape measure but confirmed that both legs were the same length.
Since then I have witnessed or heard of many other miraculous healings which have happened when asked for in Jesus’ name.
When I was a little boy I decided that I wanted to know this “Jesus” I kept hearing about; this God with skin on that walked the earth 2000 years ago. It was easy for me to believe that he did all the miracles that are documented in the New Testament of the Bible because I was seeing similarly amazing things happen in the present day in Jesus’ name. Everything I heard about Jesus and his teachings sounded really good to me. My family and many of my friends were Christians so it seemed quite natural for me to be one too but I don’t think I developed a full understanding of what it meant to be a Christian until I was older.
So at the age of 13, when everything seemed to be going so well, I wouldn’t have believed it if someone had foretold what would happen in the next 14 years of my life. In May 1993, just a month after I had spent a week in the Lake District climbing mountains with my parents, I simultaneously developed glandular fever and insulin dependant diabetes (type 1). For the rest of my life I would have to inject myself with insulin and take a drop of blood from my finger, to test the level of sugar in blood, every time I had a meal. I would have to learn to balance insulin with food and exercise. That alone wouldn’t have been too bad, I was good at challenges, but for the next 6 weeks I was off school feeling so ill that I couldn’t do anything at all. It felt like all the energy and strength had suddenly been drained out of me.
Fortunately I seemed to make a quick recovery over the summer holidays so I was back to school in September but over the course of 3 months I became increasingly tired and was finding it more and more of a struggle to concentrate on my school work. By December I had to drop out of school. I was developing a growing number of symptoms including bad headaches, muscle pain and weakness, faintness, dizziness, periods of exhaustion, persistent nausea, inability to concentrate etc, many of which I’d never experienced before; it was a bit scary but I just assumed it would soon pass.
I spend the rest of that academic year off school. I had a home tutor for a month or two but I was very limited how much I could study. It was around that time that I received the diagnosis of M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitus) which is sometime referred to as C.F.S. (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). Research has now made it possible to distinguish between ME and other forms of CFS. ME is clearly defined disease process with testable features whereas CFS is a syndrome. The Nightingale Research Foundation in Candada has published a professional and testable ME definition which can be seen at
www.tymestrust.org/pdfs/nightingaledefinition.pdf The testable features including brain damage, muscle dysfunction, low circulating blood volume (some patients only have 6 pints of blood instead of the normal 9), major sleep dysfunction etc. Unfortunately many of the tests are not available on the Britain’s NHS because of their unusual nature. A few them are but not widely because of their expense and lack of funding. This means that at the moment it can be difficult for doctors in the UK distinguish between ME and other forms of CFS. For that reason the Department of Health refers to the illness as CFS/ME.
It was very difficult coming to terms with what was happening to me but I was helped by hearing about people who had recovered from M.E. so I just kept believing that I’d soon be able to put it all behind me and it would be a learning experience.
Once again I improved a lot over the summer but I was not 100%. I wanted to start nine G.C.S.E.s but my school had already had some experience with M.E. and only allowed me to do six. Some people thought I was lucky having shorter days at school but I rarely got the chance to explain that I got home from school so exhausted that I would have to go to bed for few hours. The illness slowed my brain down so homework took longer so I had very little energy left at the end of the day to watch TV, socialise or work on a hobby.
The first year of my G.C.S.E.s wasn’t too bad but in the second year my health started to slide down a slippery slope. I remember walking along school corridors feeling like I was dragging lead weights behind me and like I was trying to stop my brain sinking out of my head. Sometimes my head would throb with pain so much that I couldn’t concentrate on any school work. I kept losing my memory which was very embarrassing if a teacher asked me to hand out the books to everyone in the class but I couldn’t remember half their names; not that I’d managed to memorise all of them in the first place. It was a real nightmare sometimes.
I spent the second half of that year off school but fortunately I’d done most of the course work so I just did what revision I could. I sat my exams at home with an invigilator, extra time and rest breaks. I was really happy to passed 5 GCSEs and it was a great relief. But I didn’t realise until too late that I’d pushed myself far too hard and as a result my health crashed badly over the summer. I was convinced that if I took an academic year out, and took it easy, my health would improve enough to start A-levels but instead, to my dismay, it got progressively worse.
My social life became very restricted despite not going into school or doing any study. I would only go out with friends about once every week or two and I think some of them thought that there couldn’t have been much wrong with me. They didn’t realise that I was pushing myself on adrenalin to go out and then would feel really ill for days or weeks after. I rarely enjoyed going out either because my illness slowed down my brain which made it a struggle to keep up with teenage group conversations and I didn’t seem to know much about what they talking about anyway. I strived to keep some friendships going but ironically it usually just made me feel alienated, lonely and depressed.
I hated missing out on so much and that combined with the isolation and feeling so ill sometimes became too much and I had a crisis – I didn’t feel I could cope anymore. But it was always then that I realised that I’d completely forgotten about Jesus and had been trying to do everything without him. So I would cry out to him for help and time after time again he would suddenly take me from the depths of despair to the heights of glory. It was like he was wrapping his arms around me and reminding that I had an eternal future that nothing I went through could take away. He was healing me on the inside and sometimes I felt so overwhelmed by his love and a feeling of elation that I wept. I was filled with an amazing feeling of peace. I found that I was able to replace all the negative emotions with positive ones and reflections upon things God was teaching me. I still had to make difficult choices but he made it so much easier for me. I started to realise just how much I needed Jesus in my life and how that relationship is the most important thing about being a Christian.
The more difficult things became the more I leant on Jesus for strength so in that way our relationship grew and he was able to help me learn things. Some of this seemed to come directly from him, some of it from my experiences, the rest from passages in the Bible or what others said to me. I think one of the most important things Jesus helped me to learn was how to make the most of what I have and not always be greedily wanting what I don’t have; to not be jealous of those that have more, and bitter about deprivations. Easier said than done in the circumstances but the more time I spent with Jesus the more I realised that I had something that was far greater than anything 100 years on Earth had to offer.
Although I was unable to study I could still work on hobbies that didn’t require so much concentration. I was good at painting and I’d started learning guitar when I was 15. I was very ambitious about it and wanted to be in a band. When I became ill I had started to put my thoughts and feelings onto paper, at first just as prose which I think sounded awful really but it gradually developed into poetry which got better and better until years later I started getting some of it in various publications. I was very restricted in how much I could do these hobbies though and sometimes I would get so frustrated and bored with having to spend so much of the day resting that I would push myself too hard trying to do more which only ever resulted in a relapse. I would then have to deal with a lot of regret as well.
The summer of 1997 was a very difficult time for me because after a year out of education I had to face the sad fact that my health had not improved and ironically was worse instead. I would not be starting A-levels like I had hoped. I was also slowly losing touch with friends my own age. However it was the autumn of that year that some special things happened in my life. I went on the internet for the first time and soon found other M.E. sufferers who I could really relate to and we would give each other mutual support. We were soon talking on the phone and since then I have met some of these friends.
It was around this time that I really started learning not to think about myself all the time. I could see that around the world there were people who were even worse off than me. I wished the world woulddo more for them but realised that I could at least make a small difference by just trying to do anything I could for my friends with ME. So I started to try think of ways I could help or be kind to them. Although I was giving out, I discovered that it really helped me to shift the focus off my negative self-centred feelings and onto the needs of others instead. I found it brought me a feeling of happiness and fulfilment that I’d never felt before, even if I didn’t get anything in return from the person I was kind to. I was just beginning to glimpse that it was something to do with the love of God flowing through me.
Another special thing that happened that autumn of 1997 was when I went to a barbeque organised by our church. I wasn’t really well enough to go and by the time I got there I felt so tired that I didn’t feel like talking to anyone so I just stood there feeling pathetic, alone and like I didn’t really belong to that group of people anymore. Then a guy in his late 20s called Robbie, who I’d never met before came up to me and told me that he was starting a new church home group that would be meeting at his flat Wednesday evenings. He asked me if I wanted to join them and I decided to give it a go. Most of the guys in the cell were in their 20s but I found that made them generally more mature than my peers and I found it easier to relate to them. I soon became good friends with two of them. When the cell met on Wednesday evening we would talk about things we were finding difficult and also about positive things that God was doing in our lives; I was touched by people’s openness and honesty. Then we would study the Bible together, pray and worship God with music. I really enjoyed it and sensed God’s presence stronger than I had done for a long time.
I hadn’t been going to the Sunday church meetings very often because I found them too long and tiring but this home group was less intense. I started taking my guitar along to help them worship God with music. I enjoyed that but found it very demanding. The way the illness affected my memory made it difficult to remember sequences of chords and sometimes even the lyrics of songs I knew well, so I would usually need the music in front of me.
I was greatly helped by these few older friends in my church who really made an effort to get alongside me and show me kindness even though I didn’t always feel I’d earned it; that reminded me of God’s love. I started to see that God the father often shows his love through people and that is why he sent Jesus, his son, the closest person to him, down to earth in human form - so he could get right alongside us and show us love; a love that helps us to change and grow.
It was in my mid-teens that I started to think more about what it really meant to be a Christian – beyond just believing and having a relationship with God through Jesus. I developed an understanding that when Jesus allowed himself to go through the agonising crucifixion he was paying the penalty for everything man has ever done wrong and will do wrong so that God the father can forgive us and we can start on a eternal relationship with him. Even the law systems of the world recognise that there should be a penalty for wrong doing, but when I thought about it, at first it didn’t seem fair to me that Jesus should take the blame for things other people have done wrong (sin). When I thought about it further I realised that Jesus’ amazing act of love helps people to change – if they didn’t people would soon screw Heaven up – it would just be a rerun of Earth. God showed his great love for us first, while people backs were still turned, and had done nothing for him – that’s his grace – we didn’t deserve it because compared with God even the smallest sin makes us like a filthy rag. It’s like a tiny drop of ink turns a whole jar of water cloudy. Sin has been like a virus that has spread and damaged the whole of creation leaving it physically and spiritually unhealthy. God hates sin but he loves us and shows us mercy by providing a way for us come back into a relationship with him.
I looked back and saw that I’d done a lot of things wrong too and some of them I was ashamed of – like when I hit my friend on the forehead (not hard) when I was 16 because he was really winding me up. I couldn’t believe I did that, especially in an English lesson. My teacher could not believe it either particularly seeing there was a school inspector in the room! I was unwell but that was not much of an excuse. If I was to list all the other things that I’ve done wrong it would probably make this story another page longer. Thanks to Jesus I can put it all behind me; I have put my old self to death on the cross with Jesus and been born again as a “new creation in Christ”, a child of God. None of this would be possible if it wasn’t for Jesus’ resurrection 3 days after his death. Many people witnessed this. “The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the best attested fact in history.” Prof Thomas Arnold, a Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, considered to be the father of all modern historians. Jesus overcame the power of sin and death so that we can too. I believe the Holy Spirit is now living inside of me to help me learn how to overcome my inner weaknesses that cause me to do wrong. It doesn’t make me perfect but I’m on a journey towards developing the character of Jesus. The Holy Spirit also gives people spiritual gifts that enables them to do supernatural things like Jesus did.
Some of the things I did wrong in the past had become bad habits which I couldn’t seem to stop doing, how ever hard I tried but when I turned to Jesus he helped me to break free. It was a process because if I forgot about Jesus for a while I was soon slipping up again. I realised I needed to spend a lot more time with Jesus and other Christians so they could help me to grow. It was a real battle for a while but I kept believing that with Jesus’ help I could break free from the bad habits and it was a great feeling when I eventually did. It felt like my soul had become a whole lot cleaner, my level of self-control had greatly increased and the whole thing had been a humbling experience. I also came to realise that I had to forgive people who had hurt me just as God had forgiven me. I still make slip-ups occasionally and I feel that there are still things that need to change in me but I’m definitely making progress on the journey. I’m convinced that Jesus has saved me from sliding deep into a pit of sin and bitterness. He healed me on the inside in a way that nothing else could. I’ve heard many other people testify to this.
In the spring of 1998, after being ill for 5 years, I just thought I might actually be starting to get somewhere with my health when I received another blow in the form of a severe relapse. For the next 3 weeks I did pretty much nothing due to severe headaches which were made worse by the slightest bit of activity or concentration. It would have been hell if I hadn’t still been aware that Jesus was with me. I had to keep turning to him and choosing to focus on the positive things he showed me rather than wallowing in all the negativity.
The headaches slowly eased off but my ability to concentrate did not improve for a very long time. I was no longer able to concentrate on playing guitar and painting; talking to people or communicating through emails/letters was much more limited. Even something like watching TV gave me a bad headache after 5-10 minutes. It felt like so much had been stripped away from me but again I was helped by knowing that how ever much I lost while I was on Earth was nothing compared to what I would gain in eternity.
It was the autumn of that year, 1998, that I went for a 2 week stay in Burrswood, a private hospital in Kent run by Christians. They specialize in things like post-operative, terminal, old-age care and also ME/CFS I spent quite a bit of time with a Christian doctor, councillor, a Baptist minister etc.
They were all very nice but after a week I came to realize that they didn't really have anything to offer that I felt would make much difference to my health. My health had been deteriorating for years, everything just seemed really hopeless and I didn’t feel I could go on any further. So one evening I started to have an emotional crisis. I kept crying out to Jesus in desperation but unlike previous experiences, when he had suddenly taken me from the depths of despair to the heights of glory, it just felt like He was a million miles away and didn’t say a single thing. That deepened my feeling of hopelessness and despair.
About 5 minutes later I noticed someone had slipped a note under my door. It was from one of the care assistants called Louise who I had met earlier in the day. She said she had been going up a flight of stairs when suddenly she felt very burdened for me so she turned around went back down the stairs and wrote me a note because it was about 10 p.m. The timing had been unbelievably perfect! There was no way she could have known that I was having a crisis because I hadn’t been crying out to Jesus aloud, or crying my eyes out like a baby, so she wouldn’t have heard a thing if she had been walking past my door. It was an unmistakable sign that God had been watching over me even though I had not felt His presence or heard His voice.
The next day I spoke to Louise and she told me her story of how she had been a patient in Burrswood a few years before that. She had suffered from a chronic pain in the middle of her body. No doctor could work out what was causing the pain and it was so bad that she was all hunched over. One day God told her to start praying for her friends so she did. A little while later, when she was staying at Burrswood, one night God told her to get out of bed and when she did the pain went away.
I wish it had been that simple with me! I did pray for my friends and I couldn’t think of any reason why God wasn’t healing me. Nevertheless I went away from that place knowing that God was still with me and I choose to keep trusting him and believing that he has a future for me that goes way beyond ill health.
It was around that time that I started getting into photography. It didn’t require such intensive concentration as reading or writing and found plenty of things around my house and garden to photograph. I also occasionally went for little drives with my parents and liked photographing landscapes.
To cut a long story short over the next three years my health gradually deteriorated despite going to see various specialists and trying all kinds of medication and therapies. By 2001 I was mostly confined to my bedroom due to muscle weakness, pain, faintness and dizziness etc. I couldn’t sit fully upright in a chair for more than 5 minutes. If I tried to read something I struggled to understand it and developed sharp head pains after just a minute at best, sometimes instantly. Even just looking through a few photos was limited to a few minutes and I rarely could talk to anyone for more than 5 minutes. I felt very ill most of the time and one of my worse symptoms was what ME sufferers refer to as “brainfog”. It was like all my thoughts, memories, vocabulary etc was scattered far and wide in a forest full of fog and I was spending ages scrambling around trying to find it.
It didn’t really seem like a good time for my dad to hear that he had got a job in Norwich and we would be moving the 150 miles from Surrey to Norfolk but my parents had wanted to move there for years and that was the first opportunity. Interestingly after we moved my health stopped deteriorating and has very slowly improved since then. As soon we arrived in Norfolk we joined Wellspring Family Church in Dereham, then just a new church plant of around 20 people so it has been encouraging to see it grow. I’m very grateful to the individuals who have really made an effort to get alongside me and all those that have encouraged me in some way.
My health is now a lot better than it was during 2001, the worse point of my ill health. I can do about 20% of what I could when I was healthy which may not sound a lot but it’s about 10 times what it was. I’ve been really enjoying getting back to things that I’ve not done for years; it’s almost like being a boy again sometimes.
Obviously my health still has much to be desired and I could feel that God doesn’t love me because he’s not healed me after 15 years of ill health. However I believe God’s love is a love that brings maturity rather than spoiling people. Often we would like God to express more of his love NOW but we forget that his love spans for eternity. We can see it in the beauty of creation which we enjoy; we can see it in Jesus life, suffering on the cross, and those people who do their best to become like Jesus; and we can see it in the eternal future he has for us which goes way beyond anything he could do for us while we’re on Earth.
I still believe God will heal me. I’ve heard several testimonies of ME sufferers who were suddenly healed after waiting years for it. I also hear that there’s been increasing amounts of the supernatural in Christian churches and events in the UK and many other parts of the world over the last few years. If you have a health problem and you asked someone to pray for you believing you would be healed but it didn’t happen, my advice is not to drop your faith but instead increase it to a higher level by continuing to trust God even though he’s not done what you expected him to. Believe that he still will heal you at a later date and in the meanwhile allow him to build up your character as you persevere in difficulty, and allow him increase your level of compassion for others who are suffering and show you how you can help them so that they may share your eternal vision and freedom.
If you choose to walk with Jesus through this life he will always be with you. He may test your relationship with him and how much with periods of seeming separation but he’ll never completely leave you. And if you feel that you’re losing strength along the way, he can pick you up and carry you on his back – he’s very strong – just keep holding on.
Some people may struggle with issues of suffering and I don’t have all the answers but I can say a few things in addition to my reflections upon my own experiences. People, in their independence from God have done many things wrong and it is like the whole of creation has become unwell physically and spiritually and this has resulted in many kinds of suffering. I believe that for God to suddenly remove all this suffering he would have to force everyone into a perfect relationship with him but he won’t do that because he gave us free will. He is giving everyone a chance to come into a relationship with him. The number of believers is globally increasing faster than population growth so things are heading the right way. The Bible tells us, and Jesus said, that one day this world and all its suffering will come to an end and God will judge everyone fairly before creating a new earth. In the meanwhile, the church of Jesus Christ has the job of helping people find there way back into relationship with God, working against evil and repairing the damage done by man. It’s a battle, and I believe what the bible says about some of the battle involving unseen spiritual powers, but God has the upper hand and will bring all evil and suffering to an end.
Being a Christian is a daily commitment to live in relationship with God, through Jesus Christ and to do his will. I have never regretted it and don’t know how I would have survived all that I have been through with out God’s love.
Robin Sansom, Jan 2009
TRUST CAN
Trust can form a bridge over a chasm of great fear,
For you will not let me fall; your hand is always near.
Trust can keep on walking along a broken road,
For you wash my feet in love and share my heavy load.
Trust can keep on burning through a long cold night,
For you blaze amidst my dreams, and give me strength to fight.
Trust cam climb a mountain when it seems all strength has gone.
For you shine upon my heart the valley that’s beyond.
Trust can keep on waiting for another year,
For I know that you have promised to wipe off every tear.
Trust can break free from the chains of many lies,
For I know you hold the truth I can’t see with my eyes.
Trust can find the path to a higher goal,
For when I lose myself you redirect my soul.
And trust is never easy; there are questions and there’s strife,
But I’ll put my trust in you and this trust will save my life.
Ó Robin Sansom, January 2002