And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:9
There is considerable evidence already that the immune system is in a state of chronic activation in many patients with [ME].
(Anthony Komaroff, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School: American Medical Association Statement, Co-Cure, 17 July 2001)
I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t interested in medical things, and especially in nursing. I imagine that Mum being a trained nurse had something to do with it, but I always enjoyed learning about all things medical from programmes on television and from reading books.
Growing up, I had very little to do with hospitals (thankfully), apart from a minor operation for a squint when I was eight years old. I was kept on the children’s ward in the eye hospital for two nights (it would probably be only for a few hours today!), and there was no option for parents to stay with their children. I don’t remember much about it, except that it meant I was unable to go to the church holiday club and that my bed on the ward was next to a large fish tank, which I guess would be considered too unhygienic nowadays!
My interest in missionary work also grew over the years. At the age of nine I had started writing to a missionary couple and I kept in touch with them for many years. It was fascinating to hear about their lives in a totally different culture and climate from ours, and I had no doubt through my teens that I would end up working overseas after my nurse training, probably somewhere in east Africa.
Although that clearly has not happened, over the years since becoming ill I have had the privilege of corresponding with people working in numerous different countries. At first it was all done by letter, but now being able to keep in touch via email has made things a lot easier (and cheaper). I often think of how much missionaries from previous centuries, such as William Carey, would have appreciated email. Carey had to wait for many long and lonely months, with an ill wife and family, before he had any news from back home. Whilst emails and text messages can be abused, they can also be of great benefit, and I would encourage anyone who is ill, particularly those unable to get out very much, to correspond with people living and working in different parts of the world. Thanks to modern technology, today you can lie in bed and send and receive messages from people both at home and abroad.
I had hopes and plans for the future – including nursing, working abroad, wanting to get married and have a family – but none of them have worked out. Was I wrong to start nurse training, having been sure that it was what the Lord was guiding me into? If I had gone down another route, would I still have become ill?
I can’t answer either question with 100 per cent certainty, but to answer the second question first: yes, I think it is very likely that, whatever route I went down (work, university or something else), my health would still have broken down at some point. If it hadn’t been the Hepatitis B vaccine that started things off, I think something else would have done so instead, maybe a different vaccine or form of medication.
Was I right to start nurse training? Again, yes, I believe so. I have no doubt from the Bible that God does guide His people, and it was in my mind from very early on that I should do nurse training—something confirmed numerous times by the way things worked out as I grew up. God is over all things, and there are no accidents in anything that He does. So, yes, I do believe that it was His will – as was also, I believe, my getting ME and having to stop my training. The last twenty-five years have not been as I would have chosen, but my interest in medical things since an early age has certainly helped me to cope with ME, especially as I have tried to learn about it and help others with it. Obviously, I don’t have all the answers; indeed, it frequently feels as if I don’t have any answers – just lots of questions. Not until we reach heaven will we know the reasons for the things which have happened to us, but until then, although it may not seem like it, God is in control. He is sovereign. His purposes cannot be thwarted.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Romans 8:28–29
