List of all stories
My Story...
By June Harris.
Categories: Dark caves, Purple, Posture 8, Confused
When my father was young his father used to take him down to the Domain, to listen to the Sunday speakers and the one he remembered the most is old Bro. Wotton, speaking about the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to be established on this earth with Jesus as being King.
Many years later after he married and had 4 children he got to read Elpis Israel, a book which his father had given him before he died. He started to study it, and decided that is what he believed and went looking for a Christadelphian Ecclesia. He found one at Lakemba, which had been going for a short while, and he and Mum were both baptized there.
We kids didn’t know anything about this as we were all sent to the local Baptist Church which was in our street and were quite happy there as a lot of our friends went there also. We weren’t that happy to leave that Sunday school and have to catch the train to Lakemba, as we lived in Punchbowl. To start at a new Sunday school where we didn’t know anybody..
I have to say now, it was the best thing to have happened to us as we all attended the Sunday school activities and eventually we 4 kids were baptized into the saving name of Jesus.
I don’t remember the ages of my brothers, but I was baptized when I was 14. When I look back that does seem young but that was what I wanted to do.
I joined Lakemba Ecclesia and gradually met more young people from other Ecclesias, but I ever only had eyes for Keith Harris. We gradually started going together and became engaged, but then disaster struck.
One rainy Thursday I was on my way to work, and I generally crossed the main road at the crossing to get to the station to catch the train. Parked right across the crossing was a meat truck with its doors both open for delivery to the butcher’s shop. I went round the front of the truck to cross, but because it was raining so heavily and I had my umbrella up, I couldn’t see very well. The truck doors that were open block my view and I stepped out into the roadway and was hit by a bus which threw me 20 feet (7 meters) through the air, landing on my head on the other side of the road. A policeman came, as well as the ambulance, but the policeman wrapped my head up in newspaper, as there was plenty of blood around and actually said I was dead..
I wasn’t dead, God was watching over me and I guess there was still plenty of work for me to do in His service.
I had a fractured skull, concussion, a fractured leg, ligaments of my knee very badly stretched, there were facial injuries, and I was taken to Hospital and remained in a coma for 3 and half days.
So there were many prayers said for my recovery and thanks be to our Heavenly Father, I survived, although I was in Hospital for a month, then home with my leg in plaster from ankle to thigh for 3 months, and with double vision, causing me to ware a patch over alternate eyes until it righted itself. I also spoke with a Welsh accent, which gradually faded.
It was a slow process, but I recovered full health and Keith and I were married the following year.
We eventually were blessed with 4 children, 3 girls and 1 boy. There were of course many mishaps and adventures during those years.
Keith had a heart attack in his late 50’s, which he survived under God’s care although quite a few years later he had to have bypass surgery for 4 arteries… which he survived again.
His time to cease working for the Lord had not come.
The next big disaster was when we were members of particular Ecclesia and there was a difference of opinion about something or other, which wasn’t that important. I cannot remember, Keith and 5 other brothers were disfellowshipped by letter and I was threatened with it if I continued to associate with Keith. Keith would remember but I have pushed it from my mind. We were all terribly upset to think something like this could happen for a very little reason.
We eventually formed Port Hacking Ecclesia and spent a couple of years getting the matter sorted out.
It was eventually and we were back in fellowship with everyone.
I have to say here that no one, brethren or ecclesias can cut us off from the love of God. His mercy and grace are there for us all and the only person who can cut us away from God is ourselves by our actions and thoughts.
We put that all behind us and worked with enthusiasm for the Lord in our new Ecclesia.
But I guess the next calamity was my stroke in the year 2000. I was perfectly healthy, Keith and I used to walk 5 kilometres most mornings before breakfast, and we used to work down on our farm as well as in our garden. We were both reasonably fit.
I was hanging the washing out on the line before the Sunday meeting, when I suddenly couldn’t put the pegs on the line with my left hand, I kept dropping them. I thought this is strange; something is the matter with my hand. So I walked back inside the house to tell Keith. He was in the shower and when I went to talk to him and tell him about my hand the words came out so jumbled and back the front, he didn’t know what I was saying. I knew at once I was having a stroke because I had experienced the same thing with my neighbour. Keith was still in the shower and all I could manage to say was “Hospital”. He knew something was wrong, so he laid me on the bed while he dried himself and got dressed. He helped me walk out to the car and drove me straight to Emergency. I even there managed to walk into emergency but that was the last walking I did.
The result was a severe stroke caused by a clot and it made me paralysed on the left side and left me with speech difficulties. This was absolutely devastating to me as I had no signs of high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, or anything else, which could lead to a stroke. I was in Hospital for 10 weeks, in rehabilitation learning to walk and talk again.
I can now, walk with a stick and a splint on my leg, and can talk again, not always clearly and with some difficulty. Unfortunately my left hand and arm is useless as much as I tried to get it working.
As you can imagine this time was very difficult for me, but thanks to many prayers to God and cards and visits from my family, brethren and friends, I finally got back home. I have to say Keith was rock during this difficult time and he became my carer.
I had to think that time and chance happen to everyone and it could happen to me as well as anyone else. I prayed to God for courage to accept what had happened to me.
Walking and talking are things we accept we will always have till we die, and we will go on merrily doing what we always did. It took quite awhile but gradually I felt stronger and more able to cope. I had certainly been pruned back very hard so that I cannot do the same things I did before, but now for the most part I have accepted my disabilities and do what I can.
I have even accepted that if the stroke did come from God, He has given me strength to cope with my disabilities.
“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.. Blessed is the name of the Lord”.
Four years later I noticed Keith started to act differently. He was normally quite well organized but started doing and saying strange things. I thought, at first, he was finding caring for me was becoming too much and he might need a break, but the family noticed some strange things as well, and we were all getting worried. Also his driving was becoming a bit erratic and he had always been a careful driver. He was becoming difficult to live with, which was not like him at all.
We talked him into going to see the doctor and he had an x-ray and blood test but everything appeared normal. Then one morning I was out shopping on my scooter and Jacqui called in to see how things were. She found Keith with half of his face dropped as in Bell’s palsy and dribbling at the mouth. She took him straight up to the doctor, who recommended a MRI of the brain with the results to be sent directly to him. We got a call from the doctor in his lunch break, to go and see him at 2.00pm. Jacqui and Chris were still with us and we went up knowing something serious must have shown up, but no idea what it could be. When we saw the doctor, he asked Keith and I to go into his surgery and spoke to Chris and Jacqui in another surgery. They then came to us, and the doctor told us the result of the MRI. It was the worst possible news we could have had. It showed a tumour, the size of a twenty-cent piece in the left side of the brain just above the ear. Keith and I were both shocked and stunned. The doctor had already told the girls. Then somebody said, “What can we do?” The doctor rang then and there for an appointment with a neurosurgeon at St. George hospital for an emergency appointment for Friday morning, this being Wednesday.
When we got home, that is when it hit us how bad it was. We were too shocked in the doctor’s surgery for it to register, but when we got home we all broke up. That is when my throat started to close up when I cried and then I would lose my breath, which was very distressing for me and others. We were all so shocked; it was hard to come to terms with the news. From then on somebody from the family was always with us, Ros came up from the farm, we managed somehow to get through till Friday, trying not to think of the tumour, and praying to God that everything would be okay and Keith could be treated.
On Friday Dr. Kwok put the x-rays up for us to see and pointed to the tumour. He said it was Glioblastoma Multiform and was very serious. He said he could operate to remove it but then Keith would have to see an oncologist and a radiologist for further treatment and that there were no guarantees. We were all so shell-shocked, to think that something so serious could be happening to Keith. It was the beginning of a terrible nightmare for us.
Ros and our son Rog were with us and they were the ones that asked questions. Keith seemed calm but I think he was shell-shocked at the news. I was the one to cry and lose my breath again. Dr. Kwok tried to get his team ready for an operation as soon as possible, but as he was already so busy and wanted his own team he couldn’t arrange it till Saturday week. We left it to our children to inform all our relatives, the ecclesia and our friends. Keith and I couldn’t talk about it at all, as we were still trying to come to terms with this calamity.
We had family and quite a few visitors on the Saturday as the news spread quickly and that was enough for us. We couldn’t face the meeting on the Sunday morning, listening to the announcement and trying to appear as though there was nothing wrong, so Rog and Jacqui and the kids took us for a ferry ride to Manly and to the aquarium. Anything to take our mind away from the tumour, the operation, treatment and what after effects there would be. During the week, Roger and a neighbour took Keith to watch the cricket, which helped to pass the time till Friday.
Keith entered Hospital 2.00pm Friday and had a MRI at 3.00 so Dr. Kwok new exactly where the tumour was when he operated to remove it..
The operation was 8.00am on Saturday morning, and thanks be to our Heavenly Father, the doctor was able to remove the entire tumour, but Keith would have to start both radiotherapy and chemo therapy in December. Keith recovered amazingly well after such a major operation.
He had many stitches but only a thin line of hair was shaved away for the doctor to get access to remove the skull to get to the tumour.
Both the onconologist and the radiologist never gave us false hope. They both, plus the surgeon, said it was a very aggressive cancer and they hoped that with the chemo and radiotherapy the cancer would not come back.
So in December Keith started the chemo and radiotherapy. A roster was put together by the ecclesia to take Keith to and fro to St George cancer clinic. From this time forward Keith lost his appetite and was feeling quite unwell. He became quite depressed, worrying about the treatment and how it was affecting him, but what was worse he went into his shell and it was very hard for him to communicate with me. He would make the effort to speak to visitors, but after that he just wanted to be quiet and rest. It became very difficult for both of us. I know he was worried about what would become of me if he went, as he was my carer, and he wanted us to move into the Hostel straight away. After consulting with the family, I said no we would wait until all the treatment had finished and then review the situation.
The doctor gave him a tablet to try and improve his appetite, but it didn’t seem to make much difference.
We went to the meeting in February, but during the hymns he had to sit down, so I sat with him. He wasn’t well and was looking quite pale, so Chris and Neil took us home as soon as the meeting was over. When we parked in our driveway and Keith got out, he looked quite grey and said he had pains in his chest and could not walk from the car, so we got back in the car and took him to Hospital. It was discovered he had a clot in the lung, and was taken off the tablets to improve his appetite as they could cause clots. So he was put on Warfarin to thin the blood and was having constant blood tests. He was still quite weak, with no energy or appetite.
In March Keith had another cat scan and saw Dr. Kwok. The scan showed no traces of cancer. So we felt our prayers had been answered, and Keith would gradually build up his strength and energy and our life would get back to normal.
After this the family took us for some holiday breaks, to Foster, my daughter’s lavender farm, and Lake Tuross..
Keith was now getting his appetite back and was starting to drive again, although I was a bit nervous at first. So we were beginning to think that everything was going to be alright and we were both becoming quite positive. Unfortunately in June, his leg and foot started to swell and became so painful he could not walk on it. He was admitted to hospital with cellulitus, blood poisoning of the leg. He was treated with antibiotics, and was there for 2 weeks. His leg was still painful and he could not drive, and he had lost more weight.
From then on, things started to go very wrong. The trouble was because of his painful leg; I didn’t notice the signs, which told me the tumour was back again.
He was finding it hard to help me get dressed, was having trouble doing up buttons, was becoming very irritable and hard to get on with, which is not like Keith at all. He seemed to be leaning to the left when walking and having trouble using his left hand. And was having headaches, which he didn’t have with the first tumour. We had to see the doctor who was looking after Keith with his bad leg. While the nurse was checking for any clots in the leg, I told the doctor about the previous tumour and how he was acting and the headaches, he decided to send Keith for a cat scan the next morning and come back to see him. The CAT scan showed another tumour about the same size growing in almost the same spot above the ear.
We were absolutely devastated when we thought everything was going to be okay.
Dr Lennox rang Dr. Kwok straight away, and we saw him that afternoon. He said that this was really bad news, and he would make arrangements to remove the tumour as quickly as he could.
So our nightmare was starting again, only much worse than with the first tumour.
Before the first operation, we did have the hope that everything could be okay. With this operation we had no such hopes. We were all so shocked he would have to go through another major brain operation and what would be the consequences. Nobody had much to say except to try and get through the next few days, and pray to God to give us all the strength to bare this new trial.
Roger stayed with us that night as I was having trouble helping him in the night. Later that night Keith wanted to use the bottle and I was having trouble helping him, so I called to Roger for help. While Keith was sitting on the edge of the bed he blacked out. Rog rang for the ambulance and they came very quickly. They revived him but said they would have to take him to Sutherland Hospital. We told them Keith had to have major brain surgery at St George Hospital in a few days but they said they had to take him to the nearest hospital. While he was there one of the doctors he was under wanted him to have a pacemaker put in his heart because his pulse rate was so low, but Keith had always had a low pulse rate.
We were getting so upset with the indecision as it was more important to get rid of the tumour. He was getting more symptoms on the left side of the body, as though he had a stroke like me.
They put him on new medication to take down the swelling in the brain, and this medication also made him hungry, as by this time he was getting very thin after all he had been through.
He was finally allowed to leave the hospital on the Wednesday, had the MRI on the brain the next morning and was operated on that afternoon for the removal of the second tumour, 8 months after the removal of the first..
He was only in intensive care over night and they put him in a private ward. Unfortunately he was still dopey from the anesthetic and hearing the nurses bell all the time, he thought it was the front door bell and was calling to me to answer it. When I didn’t come he somehow managed to get out through the sides of the bed and fell and hit his head. He did have a cut on the head but luckily didn’t seem to have done any damage to the operation.
Unfortunately Dr. Kwok could not remove the entire tumour. There was some of the tumour left under the skull which he could not reach and the pressure from the tumour had left Keith paralysed on the left side, the same as me, as if he had had a stroke. So Keith had to stay at St. George this time, for 10 days, until a bed became available at Calvary, for Keith to have rehabilitation to see how he could manage before he came home. He was there for 2 weeks learning how too manage for when he came home. The problem was he was my carer, so we had to organize to get more help at home.
During this time we had an appointment with the radiologist and he told us there was no way Keith could have any more radio, as the brain could not take any more. There was a possibility that he could have more chemo, but things were looking really grim, and we didn’t have much hope. We were really down to living one day at a time. The only good thing at this stage was that the medication they had given Keith to reduce the swelling in the brain actually gave him an appetite, so that he enjoyed his food again, and he started to look good in the face, but of course his legs and body were getting thinner.
It was very difficult when he came home, he had quite a few falls, and we discovered that he did not realize that his left side was not working properly. The doctor said that somehow the message wasn’t getting through that everything was not working properly. With me, I know it was the stroke that paralysed me, but Keith had to learn that he could not now do the things he wanted to do.
We saw Dr. Kwok, but he said there was nothing more he could do. We saw the chemo doctor about more chemo, but Keith wasn’t sure, as he had so many more problems now that he couldn’t cope with the nausea as well, and there was no guarantee that it would work, so decided against it.
I had hoped that I might have managed to look after Keith and keep him at home, but the morning of 23rd August, our local doctor came to see Keith as he had had a bad fall in the morning. The doctor took his blood pressure, and watched him walk and thought everything was okay, and gave Rog a script to take to the chemist.
While he was gone Keith called to me and then he started to have a fit.
It was so terrible to watch.
I hurried to get a basin in case he was sick. He took his top plate out, but his face was moving all the time and his head shaking. I hurried to the ‘phone to ring Rog on his mobile and to come home quick as his Dad was having a fit. I felt so helpless and useless..
Keith was still having the fit and Rog wasn’t back so I hurried to the ‘phone and rang 000, and told them to come quick as Keith was having a fit. By this time Rog came running in, and because by this time, I was so upset, he had to speak to them and asked what he could do and gave them the address. The fit must have lasted 12 /15minutes, and was just stopping, so Rog tried to lay him on the floor, but couldn’t, so he was half carrying and half dragging him onto a bed when the ambulance arrived. They got Keith settled asked all the usual questions and took him to Sutherland Hospital. It was so busy in emergency he stayed there all night.
The next morning we went to see him there and he started having another fit, which upset me very much, but the nurses came and gave him an injection which seemed to stop it. Because of his left side, they put him in a ward for stroke victims because that is what his symptoms were like. They were trying to get him into Calvary again for rehabilitation, but they were so busy we had to wait for another week before there was a vacancy. They tried to rehabilitate him so he could come home again, and when he first went there he tried but it was becoming too much for him and he was getting weaker and weaker. I had visits with the social workers and the doctors but they said he was too sick to come home. By this time he became incontinent and was becoming very, very tired and wanted to sleep more and more. He still looked all right in the face; it was the rest of him that was so thin.
We all knew that it was just a matter of time before he would go, but I could not talk about his dying as it upset me too much, and I didn’t know how I was going to manage without him. He was my carer.
I didn’t want to make him feel any worse about dying than he already did, he was always so conscience of doing the right thing and I knew he was worried about me, but could only put his trust in God to watch over me when he was gone. At this time I discovered a lump growing on his head from the wound.
It was getting bigger and the nurses said it was fluid seeping through the incision as the tumour was growing bigger and the fluid had to go somewhere. He was starting to get headaches quite severely by now and his eyesight was starting to fade. They put him back in a private room and Ros and Rog were taking it in turns to stay with him at night. He also had morphine by now and had the button to push himself when the pain became too bad.
Keith never once complained that this had happened to him and kept his sense of humour almost to the end. The nurses liked his humour and liked looking after him, he was a good patient.
Keith lost his battle with cancer on 25.9.04.
He died early that morning peacefully.
Rog, Chris and Jacqui were with him.
Keith is now asleep in the Lord, awaiting the resurrection and the return of Jesus to set up God’s Kingdom on this earth.
Meanwhile God is watching over me and Jesus said “I am with you always.”
There are many times when you feel all alone and everything gets too hard, but after praying to God and asking him for courage to keep going, I find that He does give me courage and I can keep going forward. Not the same as I did, I am much slower and can’t do what I would like to, but a smile, a kind word, a hug, a telephone call, a card, and my support for all the activities of my ecclesia..
Whatever I can do whether big or little, is to show the love of God and Christ to others and help them on the way to the Kingdom.
Silence
By Pete
Categories: Loose footing, Dark blue, Posture 12, Confused
I have always felt like I had a lot of potential, that I was bright, at least smart enough to navigate through this life. About seven years ago the things that I was trying to create in life started falling down around me.
My career seemed to evaporate, and I couldn’t make any sense of what was left, I had put so much into applying my ‘talents’ in this world, but God didn’t seem to want that. I was committed and involved in a small church group, but God didn’t seem to like something about that and I found that I had stepped out of it. I had a small house which contained a small family but that didn’t create in me a feeling of being grounded or content. I was doing love practically but wasn’t feeling it.
At the start I felt like God was challenging me by removing things from my life, I would say, ‘thank you Lord for this lesson, your involvement in my life’. But the removal of ‘important’ things in my life didn’t stop and I started to say to God, ‘thank you, but I cannot cope with any more, I have learnt enough’. It started to hurt, it started to make me sad, it made me work harder, fight harder and pray harder. I tried everything that I had learnt to do.
I was confused and started saying, ‘where are you Lord, why Lord’. God seemed to have gone silent on me, I couldn’t understand the signs.
I came across a song by Jars of Clay called Silence which connected directly to how I was feeling at that time. I listened to it again and again; I would see how many repeats of the song it took for me to get to work.
I thought you were silent.
I thought you left me
For the wreckage and the waste.
On an empty beach of faith,
Was it true?
I got a question,
I got a question-
Where are you?
I felt stupid and humiliated; I felt like I had failed, that nobody understood what was inside me. The song didn’t give me a lot of direction about where to go next, but reassured me that other Christian men had asked God some hard questions while waiting for answers.
At this time I came across Philippians 4 verses 4 to 8. It seemed to encourage me to persist in embodying the characteristics of Christ, and even though I didn’t seem to have the eyes to see it God was rewarding me and that He wanted good things for me.
Philippians 4 - Think of Excellence
6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Since that time when I felt that God was silent, God continued to take things away. God was preparing me to trust more fully in Him, to fully experience love through His eyes. Around this time a Christian man suggested I work through the book Experiencing God – knowing and doing the will of God. This book changed me from knowing God; to having a relationship with God, a daily two way relationship.
I realised that God wasn’t silent, I was asking the wrong questions, God wasn’t silent I just didn’t like what He was saying. God wanted me to sacrifice my pride, my capability and to sacrifice my ego and carry my cross. The blessings I desired were on the other side of my sacrifice.
One more try
By Pete
Categories: Same track, Brown, Posture 10,Suicidal
I didn’t really do very well at school, never really quite got it. After leaving school and trying a few things I became driven to demonstrate that I was a clever guy and equal anybody else. Coming through Sunday school over the years I had developed this belief that we all have a special purpose, a special work that we need to discover and get busy with. I saw this work as existing out there in the world, like a conquest or mission.
I spent the next fifteen years of my life trying to get a message from God about what the project was and then make it happen. I commenced lots of projects, bought equipment, gathered people together, sold ideas, committed time, learnt skills, visualised outcomes and wrote lists. When I hit my mid-thirties I still felt like a late adolescent still searching for the perfect project and ultimate satisfaction from what I was to put my focus into. I was exhausted, disinterested and depressed.
When I was in my twenties my personal projects seemed to have about a two year life cycle of me becoming interested, applying all my focus and all my resources then collapsing exhausted with a bag of positive and negative experiences.
In my mid-thirties something changed, I would still have ideas and fantasies about what project I was being directed to embark upon but the life cycle became shorter and shorter and few missions ever began. The life cycle shrank from two years to about two days. I became honest, I realised that I didn’t want these projects; I didn’t want the bag of mixed experiences or even the imagined rewards from the project. I recognised my own ridiculousness; my entire belief about how a man of faith engaged in the world and applied his mind and opportunities was incorrect. My approach was subconsciously designed to make me feel safe, important and useful.
As I sat lost, fending off depression with my tattered Bible and knees sore from the same prayers I challenged myself with some ‘what if’ questions. I knew that God loved me and wanted to bless me, I knew that God saw me as beautiful and valuable. I couldn’t see how these pieces of knowledge were to be felt in my heart. I felt empty, tired, sad and purposeless.
Luke 12 - God Knows and Cares
24 "Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds!
31 "But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
So I challenged myself, let’s say that I had the thought that I would rather be dead, then holding that thought, what if I chose to live and do it differently, only do those things that give you joy? Only pursue those things that give you the feeling that God is feeding and clothing you and that God designed you for a special purpose. I challenged myself one step further, if I choose to believe that I am valuable and that God is providing for me, then I should imagine that each day all money, food, transport, clothes are provided. I tried to completely get the feeling that everything is provided, that all creation is complete, there is nothing to be done, I am enough.
With that feeling in place I asked myself, now valuable person, make a choice to be here on God’s physical earth and get a sense of what things you are going to do to fill in your time, don’t think of good works or righteous pursuits but think of what is coming from your heart. What has God laid in my heart from before I was born, what am I passionate about, what do I never tire from, what excites me and energises me, what connects me to others.
I realised that these fragile things that came up were my talents, my precious gifts. Just like the birds and the flowers, God was simply asking me to be the flower or bird that he had created me to be, to embody the beautiful simplicity of His design.
The things I realised about myself through this visualisation felt so right and filled me with joy. But living this reality feels so strange after so many years of creating my own strict religion for me, a religion of fear and negative self talk. As I talk with God I am reassured that He wants me to focus and discipline myself around those things that flow from my heart when I am filled with Him. Each day with full belief I say, ‘thank you for my daily bread’, thank you for providing all I need today to be all that I am. Thank you that I no longer have to live a life that I hated, thank you for asking me to simply be me. Every day I aim to be all of me.
Mark 12 -
God of the living
26 ... 'I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, and the God of Jacob'?
27 "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken."
I do not yet fully understand this verse, but the line, He is not the God of the dead, but of the living stands out to me at the moment and it seems that there is something I need to understand about being alive. I am going to give it one more try and I am simply going to be all those things that God has created me to be passionate about and that will be my beautiful project for God.