Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.
(Psalm 37:5)
The evidence is now so strong that ME/CFS [Chronic Fatigue Syndrome] is a multisystem neuro-immune disease that it becomes intellectually embarrassing for anyone to continue to consider it to be a psychosomatic disorder.
(The Countess of Mar, ‘Countess of Mar’s Letter to Author’, ME Research UK, posted 18 June 2015, https://www.meresearch.org.uk/countess-of-mar-letter/)
Having survived being born ten weeks prematurely with very few problems, the rest of my early years were unremarkable and healthy. I had measles as a baby, and my brother Tim and I caught the ‘normal’ childhood illnesses, such as chickenpox, as they did the rounds; there was nothing to suggest any future problems.
We had (and still have) a close family. Dad, now retired, worked for many years in the NHS in hospital finance. Mum, also retired, was a trained nurse. She had planned to study midwifery in Edinburgh, but it was at that time that she met Dad, so she never got to Edinburgh! Mum and Dad had both become Christians early in their lives, and Tim and I were brought up to attend church on a regular basis. We were also taught from the Bible at home, and Mum used to read to us from Christian books. I particularly enjoyed hearing of the lives of well-known missionaries such as Hudson Taylor, William Carey and Mary Slessor. I think that it was listening to Mum reading these biographies that started my interest in missionary work—I thought that maybe I would be able to do something exciting like that one day!
Some people are able to give a precise time and date for when they became Christians; I cannot. I believe that I was saved when I was around seven or eight years of age, but I can’t be more exact. That used to worry me, but the words of a friend were helpful, and I’ve never forgotten them. She said to imagine that you are travelling by train, going through a tunnel, from one country to another. At some point during the journey you cross the border, but, being in the tunnel, you don’t know exactly when that happens. However, when you come out of the tunnel, you know that you are in the new country – and that is how it is with those of us whom God has saved, by His grace, but who don’t know exactly when it happened. We know that we are Christians; we just can’t give an exact time as to when the great change took place.
At church Tim and I attended the Sunday school, known as Adventurers, which included going on the yearly camp away from home for a couple of nights – I remember some very cold weekends away! The church we belonged to also had an annual holiday club which had become quite well known in the village. I remember one year, when the theme was the life of Daniel, about 200 children came along. The holiday club at that church is still going, but with considerably fewer children – a sign of the times, no doubt.
As well as the privilege of having Christian parents, my brother and I were also blessed with four Christian grandparents. Grandma and Grandpa (for many years a Baptist minister), Dad’s parents, lived not far away, and when we were about seven or eight, Gran and Grandad, Mum’s parents, moved from their home in Liverpool to live in a flat just a couple of minutes’ walk from where we lived. Surrounded by grandparents, we had many years of family occasions marking birthdays, wedding anniversaries, Christmas, and so on.
Neither Mum nor Dad could ever be described as ‘sporty’, but we were encouraged to learn to swim and took part in sports lessons at school. The family holidays that I recall most clearly were to North Devon, as well as Cornwall and the New Forest. So, with family life, attending church, going to school, games, playing with local friends and holidays, I was certainly fit and active. There were no signs of any of the health problems that were to come later on.
