Faith | Dreaming Beneath the Spires

On Cancer, Declining Chemotherapy, Healing, and Future Plans

B0006844 Colon cancer cells Credit: Lorna McInroy. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://images.wellcome.ac.uk Cultured colon cancer cells showing the nuclei stained with DAPI in blue, the actin cytoskeleton in red and plectin (isoform 1k) in green. Plectin interacts with cytoskeletal actin, affecting its behaviour. This subtype of plectin promotes the migration of cells and may affect metastasis. Confocal micrograph 2005 Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons by-nc-nd 2.0 UK, see http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/indexplus/page/Prices.html

Human colon cancer cells

So hi there, I am back…back to regular blogging, back to health– physically, emotionally, spiritually and creatively.

So, news of my world: I had surgery for colon cancer on November 25^th, 2014, which now feels very long ago—like a bad, surreal dream.

I was offered chemotherapy, which would increase my odds of being alive in five years by 10%. The side effects as explained by my oncologist: Anaemia, progressive tiredness which persists for some weeks after the treatment ends. Depressed immune system and risk of infection: the treatment reduces white blood cell count. Bruising of nerves, peripheral neuropathy, numb hands or feet, which may make typing hard, and which sometimes is permanent. Nausea, diarrhoea, mouth ulcers. Temporary hair loss. Eye problems. Headaches. Muscles, joint and stomach pain. Abdominal pain. Changes in liver function. 1 in 200 die.

The adjuvant chemotherapy recommended supports surgery by killing any cancer cells which may (or may not!) remain. It’s like an insurance policy, and is potentially over-treating, the oncologist explained. Colon cancer does return for 40 to 50% of patients—i.e. hey, cancer is not a joke (or, at least, a very bad one!). Adjuvant chemotherapy reduces recurrences by 10%.

As I prayed, I became convinced that toxic chemotherapy which often causes permanent physical, emotional and intellectual damage was not the path for me. Not the path through the dark woods on which I would meet the Father, Son and Spirit whistling as they stroll.

Might anything besides chemotherapy give me a 10% survival benefit? My oncologist said that research shows that exercise increases survival after colon cancer. As does Vitamin D and aspirin. People know what they know and don’t know what they don’t know. Could there be evidence-based research that my oncologist had not yet looked at, did not know of?

“Oh God!” I prayed. “There are 298,000 species of plants. Surely, surely, some of them would zap any remaining cancer cells without the havoc wrought by toxic chemicals. Is it possible that God who placed dock leaves near stinging nettles did not create even one plant which would bless the body while neutralising cancer cells? Even one plant which would strengthen the immune system to “fight” cancer so that it would not spread? Surely God will lead me to such plants.”

In the Parable of Weeds in Matthew, Jesus recommends leaving enemy-sown weeds in the field lest, in uprooting them, good plants are uprooted as well. When I thought about chemo, there was no light in it. I felt sure chemo, for me, was not the way of the Spirit, that the Spirit would guide me to non-toxic therapies that might strengthen the immune system, rather than weaken me body, mind and soul in the process of zapping renegade demon cells.

* * *

As I called out to the Lord in my distress, the title of a book a friend had recommended popped into my mind: God’s Way to Ultimate Health by George Malkmus, who watched his mother rapidly grow ill and die from toxic cancer treatments rather than the disease. (A common experience, apparently!) Declining chemotherapy, he cured his colon cancer by aggressive doses of nutrients through juicing. A raw food diet. Supplements. Exercise. My friend recommended Chrisbeatcancer.com, who inspired by Malkmus used these strategies to heal his own Stage III colon cancer without chemotherapy.

Diet and exercise had been my Achilles’ heel, and so I had some of the lifestyle risk factors for colon cancer. So while I have not changed as drastically as I would have liked, over the last eight months I have changed what I eat, and I intend to continue, respecting my body as a gift God gave me, which I need to keep healthy for my intellectual, spiritual, emotional and physical life to flourish.

Malkmus recommends a discipline which he says will change your life, and might possibly save it. Walk a mile as fast as you can, write down the speed; then, each day continue walking as fast as you can until you can do a mile in 15 minutes. Then walk two miles as fast as you can, until you can do 2 miles in 30 minutes; then 3 miles in 45 minutes, then 4 miles in an hour. I was walking a mile in 30-33 minutes after surgery, and am now down to a 21 minute mile (and walking 3.5 miles, over 10,000 steps) and am loving the increased fitness—especially because I can now be on my feet, exploring all day on holiday. I still need major improvements in fitness, but am optimistic, since I have been steadily improving my pace.

Other changes: Carrot juice. Green juice. Salads. A lot of vegetables, steamed or roasted. No meat. Less diary. Fish and salmon every day, since Seventh Day Adventist studies show that eating oily fish protects against colon cancer. A handful of supplements, some recommended by my younger sister, Dr. Shalini Cornelio who has worked in cancer research at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York City: Resveratrol (grape seed extract). Sulforaphane (broccoli sprout extract). Turmeric. Aged garlic. Probiotic supplements. Fish oil. Vitamin D. Aspirin. Calcium. Multivits.

So rather than a path of passivity, submitting to a toxic regimen, I took a path of positivity and challenge—exercise, and mega-doses of nutrients through juices, salads, and supplements to strengthen the immune system against errant cells. In eight months, it has left me stronger than I have been for years, perhaps decades, rather than significantly weaker.

* * *

I put out of my mind the fear of death. And any irrational fear of cancer. I told God I was making the best decision I could with the light given to me and if I had mis-read his will, and the days ordained for me were up before I had done my life’s work, well then, okay. He is the Lord of my cells. I will trust him with cancer and my life and death as with everything else. As I said, “Okay, Lord, I’ll leave the date of my death up to you. You choose,” fear and anxiety drained out of me and I could think clearly.

Chemo? No way.

And, oh me of little faith, after researching natural ways to strengthen my immune system to neutralize cancer cells, I also—repeatedly– asked Jesus to reach out his mighty hands and zap any remaining cancer cells in my blood stream.

Do I believe in the efficacy of prayer for physical healing? That’s one of the frequent questions I’ve been asked as a blogger over the last five years. Of course, I do…just as I believe in the efficacy of any prayer. Physical healing is not a special subset of prayer; miracles occur here, as in any realm we pray for with faith.

I like to read the Gospels taking Jesus at his word. I like to read the Gospels as if Jesus is alive today, and can reach out his hand and heal me as he healed so many two thousand years ago.

I prayed as Jesus commanded with a mighty mustard seed of faith. So why act as if Jesus hadn’t heard me, couldn’t hear me, would meanly not hear me, and take toxic drugs too? What’s the point of praying, and then acting as if God surely has not heard your prayers?

* * *

At my check-up on June 19^th, the colonoscopy, blood tests and chest/abdomen/pelvis scan showed no evidence of disease.

In her documentary, “Crazy, Sexy Cancer,” cute presenter Kris Carr says, “I would not call cancer a gift because I would not give it to you, but for me, it has been a gift.”

I would echo that.

I feel like one who has crossed over from death to life.

And I have, physically.

The Apostle John gives us a spiritual sign that we have crossed over from death to life…and it is not the absence of cancer cells. We know that have crossed over from death to life because we love one another, he says

Love, the spiritual gift before which eloquence or tongues, prophecy or scriptural insight, faith or generosity, count for nothing. For too a long a time in my Christian life, I have privileged these–effective prayer, faith, scriptural insight, prophetic gifting. I considered them my spiritual gifts.

I am coming like Christina Rossetti to believe that “all is small save love, for love is all in all.”

* * *

Oh, all sort of gifts came with crabby old cancer.

Living in the moment, free and bird-like. A remarkable diminution of worry. If I cannot control errant cells in my body but have to trust God with them, with the days of my life and the date of my death, why not trust him for everything else?

A freedom, a lightness came as I left my life, finances, career and death in God’s hands. I am practising not worrying about anything at all.

A wry coolness and lightness with whether I achieve my dreams or not.

A greater desire to write beautiful things that might last, things with some significance, that might actually bless people.

Momento Mori. Remembrance of Death. In the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the thoughtful placed a skull upon their desk as a reminder to focus because life was short and death was certain.

* * *

So here I am, back again. I spent some time deciding whether I wanted to be just a writer of books, or a blogger as well. In the end, I decided that blogging was a calling—yes, a ministry, my ministry–and that I should be faithful to it, so here I am. Back.

* * *

What sort of blogging will I do?

Honest blogging. Life is too short to be anything but honest, in one’s speech, one’s writing, and one’s relationships.

So I will blog honestly about where I am in my Pilgrim’s Progress.

Bunyan’s Pilgrim eventually reaches the Heavenly City. But while he staggers on his pilgrimage through the Slough of Despond, the Hill of Difficulty, Doubting Castle, and Vanity Fair, though he was such a very flawed character, he still had much to teach less-experienced pilgrims who had not yet encountered Giant Despair or Beelezub’s Castle, simply because he had transcended so many obstacles.

And so, though I would like my Christian story to be purely sheerly inspiring, I will tell it honestly to help such as I who struggle with the same temptations, the same spells in Doubting Castle, the same stumbles into the Slough of Despond, the same meanders into Vanity Fair.

Come and read?

Tweetables

I feel like one who has crossed over from death to life. From @anitamathias1

What’s the point of praying, and then acting as if God surely has not heard your prayers? From @anitamathias1

I prayed as Jesus commanded, So why act as if Jesus hadn’t heard, and take toxic drugs too? From @anitamathias1

“All is small save love, for love is all in all” New post from @anitamathias1

“He is the Lord of my cells.” New post from @anitamathias1

Walking on the Waters, Looking at Jesus, in the Shadow of the Big C (who Must not be Named)

By Anita Mathias

I had a cancer scare two and a half years ago. Fear gripped my heart when I realised the doctor suspected endometrial cancer. Fears of chemotherapy–and, perhaps worse, death. My youngest daughter was just 12. I was by no means ready to die.

And I lay down, and “saw” a vision. Christ walking towards me on the dark waters. And he said, “It is I. Do not be afraid.”

I took that to mean that I did not have cancer, and fear left my heart.

The biopsy results took six weeks to arrive. A friend who worked in that department told me that I would get my results earlier if I called. Roy urged me to call, but I had lost interest. I had seen Jesus and he told me not to be afraid.

When the letter arrived, all was well.

* * *

Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, why did I not revise my life? Change my diet, cut fat and sugars, become active and lose weight. Oh Jesus!

So I reach a state of exhaustion this August, and I keep telling Roy, “I think I have cancer. Nothing else can explain the progressive exhaustion despite a good, good diet.” My short daily walk was exhausting me.

I go to the doctor. I am severely anaemic. I have a colonoscopy. They find a very large polyp. It has been growing for years by the size of it. The doctor looks at it, and says it has a Type V pit pattern, the worst incidentally, correlated with malignancies.

The biopsy results take 23 days to arrive—just long enough for hope to spring up in my heart, hope for a second chance to be healthy and revise my life.

The nurse hears the tremor in my voice, and says the results are “highly suspicious” of cancer. Was she being kind? Oh I prefer the truth, no matter how brutal.

So I am to see a surgeon on November 13^th for another colonoscopy and to plan on how to remove the 6 cm polyp. The nurse thinks it will probably involve major surgery, scheduled for November 25^th or December 9^th.

This dismays me. I have so little energy, and exercise is hard for me, anyway. How on earth will I exercise while recovering from surgery?

* * *

Anyway, when I first got the call saying the anaemia was severe, and I should have a colonoscopy, I was filled with fear, and lay face down on my bed.

And, like the previous time, I “saw” Jesus walk towards me on the waters. And he said, “Take courage. It is I; do not be afraid.” (Matt. 14:27)

And like Peter, I saw myself walk towards him on the waters, and grow afraid, and begin to sink.

And Jesus held my hand, and said, “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?”

So that was the image and the comfort. Not a clear sense of “No cancer,” as last time, alas, but this comfort: Jesus will hold my hand through this. I will walk on the waters of what is to come, holding Jesus’s hand.

* * *

So that’s where I am. You see posters, “I don’t just hope for miracles. I rely on them.” Well, increasingly, that’s the way I live, relying on miracles.

So I am praying for a miracle–that when the surgeon looks at the polyp on November 13^th, it will have shrunk. That God will change the molecules of the polyp so that when they are biopsied again, they will prove not to be malignant. (He IS a molecular biologist. He changed the molecules of water to wine; of bread, so it fed five thousand.)

There are three types of surgery: snaring the polyp via endoscopy, but the team thinks it’s too large for that. There is keyhole surgery, which would remove it with minimal intervention. Or, horrors, removal of that section of the colon, which is what the nurse thinks might happen. NO, Jesus!!

And, of course, cancer is Mordor, the Land of Shadows and Darkness. There are other possibilities which I am refusing to contemplate until I have to.

So, if you are a person of ridiculous faith, please could you pray that the polyp will shrink, that God will change its molecules so that it is not malignant, and that it will be removed with minimal surgery.

* * *

The risk factors for colon cancer are red meat, a high fat diet, being overweight, and being sedentary. Readers, you can be jolly sure that I will not be eating red meat, will not be eating high fat, and will not be sedentary. Oh no, I will not! As for being overweight, if I can figure out what to do to shift my weight, I will. Oh yes, I will.

Fortunately, the things which minimise one’s risk of colon cancer—fruit, vegetables, bran, cruciferous vegetables, onions, are also things that are great for one’s health.

So if I get out of this shadow alive, I am jolly sure I will be a healthier girl. And if you could pray with me that the horror will be minimal, I will be so grateful!!

When Sarah snorted, but God had mercy on her, anyway

By Anita Mathias


	Arent de Gelder 1645-1727

Three white-clad men walk out of the desert, out of the shimmering sands. Calm holiness. Abraham, the Patriarch, “very wealthy in silver and gold, sheep and cattle and camels and male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants” runs to meet them, bows low to the ground, and offers him his most lavish hospitality: a freshly slaughtered calf, yogurt and milk, and bread from the finest flour,

It is a theophany; Abraham sees the pre-incarnate Christ. (And some theologians suggest, the trinity: The Father, Son and Holy Spirit). In other words, Abraham sees God.

^“Then one of the men said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son” (Gen 18:10).

* * *

And Sarah, listening at the entrance of her tent, out of sight, snorts.

Same old, same old, same old promises. The son, descendants, more of them than the stars in the sky and the grains of sand in the seashore.

Well, God, that sounds wonderfully poetic, all those promises, but you know, as for me, here, in space and time, time is passing, time has passed, and well, I could do with just one child. I have waited so long. I have hoped so long. Is that too much to ask? Well, yes, apparently so!

I am weary of these promises. I am weary of hope. “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?” she thinks. (Gen 18:12)

And Sarah snorts!

* * *

Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ ¹⁴Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Gen 18: 13-14)

But perhaps the Lord also thought, “Yeah, I get Sarah. I have tried their hope and faith and patience for long decades. Perhaps too long. I have given them a good life full of richness. I have blessed them in every other way, but I know their longing, their heartbeat. It is for a son. It is for Isaac.

I waited so long so that they would never doubt that Isaac was mine, and not theirs. So that they would never fail to see my glory in this baby, Isaac. Never doubt Isaac was a miracle baby, my miracle ancestor, pre-figuring when I too would enter human history as a miracle baby, the greatest miracle of all.

But it is now time. Time for their miracle. Time for Isaac.”

“I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”

But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.” (Gen 18: 14-15)

* * *

Ah, Sarah, how you blown it. Snorting at a theophany! Snorting at Christ and his angels! You’ve lost hope. Bitterness snakes around your heart. You no longer have the energy, the courage to hope, and who can blame you?

And then you lie! You lie to the Lord, who sees your heart.

But are you zapped, turned to a pillar of salt, as Lot’s wife was?

No, the Lord understood your longing, your disappointment, your frustration.

And despite your snort of laughter, your spontaneous lie, He reiterated his promise, no longer vague, but definite now, at last. “I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

And He did, and you did, and you called him Isaac, which means laughter. Your snort of derisive laughter was redeemed; it became the laughter of joy at your miracle baby.

* * *

Sometimes, our dreams seem ridiculously enormous, and it seems very unlikely that they will ever come to pass, our faith wavers, and the years pass, but our dreams, the promises we heard God whisper to us, the destiny we are born for, has not come to pass, and when we verbalise our dreams, we almost snort.

And how can you, Lord, bless someone who has so blown it?

And you see us, you know our frame; you know we are but dust, you have compassion on our flagging faith amid our thwarted dreams. And so though we do not deserve it, you come to us; you bring the destiny you have promised us to pass, though it may not look like what we had dreamed of. Seeds beneath the desert soil burst into desert flowers.

You give us the fruits of your promise, whose name is laughter. You enjoy the pun, artist that you are, transforming our snort of sceptical laughter to laughter like a running brook.

God Breathes Stars–and Honour on His Beloved

By Anita Mathias

“God breathed, and all the stars were born.” “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.” NIV Psalm 33:6.

“And he breathed on them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” John 20:22.

The Lord breathes on us.

At his breath, we are cloaked in gold dust,

stars and the jewels of this earth

which he creates from mud, coal, rock,

and the bones of dead creatures.

From these nothings,

he creates diamonds, sapphires,

rubies which he breathes over us.

He sees us as beautiful, resplendent,

Because we are his children.

* * *

But we forget

that “we do not have because we do not ask .”

that the Lord can breathe

inspiration on us,

the ideas, the words, the books we long to write.

That God blessed the schemer Jacob

because he ask him to.

That God enlarged the territory of the insignificant Jabez

because he asked him to.

And that is the great secret of getting things done:

Asking God for the power of the Holy Spirit,

And “doing what he tells us.”

We forget that the Lord can breathe

Our hearts’ desires on us.

We think that achieving stuff is all up to us.

But the more we crave the good things of this earth,

The more we need to burrow into the heart of Jesus,

To find them in him, through him and with him.

* * *

We instead toil and strive and scheme and intrigue

To get to the top

Of our particular ant-heap

Forgetting that

He can breathe on us everything we crave for,

Just like that.

And we worry and strategize

and look around in envy,

while he, forgotten, stands waiting

to scatter his goodness

on whomever will ask,

sadly watching us scheme and scramble

For he knows there’ll never be a shortage

Of wealth or honour,

For he creates these with this breath.

In Which I Resolve Not to Be Afraid

By Anita Mathias

So the disciples row for “three or three and a half miles.” (I love these charming details, John striving to remember accurately–and how they make it easier for us to believe in the truth of these memoirs of Jesus.)

It’s dark; the wind is raging; the waters are rough.

And a figure looms out of the darkness, walking on the waters, approaching the boat.

And they cannot see his face; and they do not know his name

And understandably, they are terrified.

* * *

Who is he who comes walking on the waters, in the dark, when the winds rage, and the sea is rough?

The dark figure terrifies, until he speaks his name, “It is I. Do not be afraid.”

And that too is the aspect He sometimes wears. He appears when it is dark, and the winds are strong, and the waters rough. He walks towards us, a dark figure, and we cannot see his face, and we do not know his name, and we are terrified.

But it is Him, nonetheless, and face to face with the stranger in the darkness, we are to remember God’s most consistent command: Do not be afraid.

And so I will not be afraid.

I shall taste the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

* * *

The Israelites response to the manna which sustained them was “What is it?” In Hebrew, Manna.

“Tell me your name,” Jacob uncertainly asks the dark figure who disabled him. “Who is it?” the disciples wondered, terrified, as a figure looms out the storm and darkness, approaching them. Or, “Manna.”

The answer was always, is always, the same. For richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, in success or in failure, in rich friendship or loneliness.

It is the Lord.

* * *

Everything we have comes from God. He comes to us in spring and summer–and in winter too. In abundance—and in scarcity too. When life is easy—and when it’s excruciatingly hard.

“Yes,” I say to the dark figure walking towards me amidst the roaring winds and stormy sea. “I know it is you. I have trusted you in the past and I trust you now. I know you.”

“And so, however the dice falls, I know nothing shall separate me from your love, and all shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well.”

A Little Bit of Theology for Victims of Burglaries (Which, Alas, I Have Just Been)

By Anita Mathias

So my grandfather, Piedade Felician Mathias, a distinguished surgeon, had invested his life savings in gold jewellery, because gold in India then, as now, rose faster than anything else.

And my grandmother, trusting and sanguine as I am, left this on her dressing table. The maid vanished–as did the gold.

Everyone wanted my grandfather to report the maid to the Parish Priest, which in the interconnected Catholic town of Mangalore would mean that she would never get married in the church, and would eventually be caught.

He shrugged. My father, remembers him saying in the words of Job “The Lord gives, the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

* * *

Many years later, when I flew to India, with Roy, my very-new husband, he, carelessly, foolishly, put my 24-carat gold jewellery in an unlocked suitcase—which did not arrive in Bangalore.

I was exasperated. “Roy, who puts jewellery in a suitcase rather than hand luggage? And what kind of person does not lock the suitcase?” I scolded.

“Sshh,” my father said, for he wanted my marriage to work. He told me the story of his father who said with Job “Should we accept good from the hand of the Lord and should we not accept evil?” when he lost his entire life’s savings to date.

I had recommitted my life to following Jesus a little before we married, 24 years ago, so I decided to echo my grandfather in the face of annoying financial loss. However, I put that missing suitcase on my prayer list—“even now”–and continued asking God to find it.

After 90 days, we got our $500 compensation form TWA. And on the 91^st day, a phone call. Roy had not bothered with an updated luggage tag, but there was an old one from Johns Hopkins University where he had got his Ph.D. TWA called Johns Hopkins, who gave them our current address in Stanford University, Palo Alto, where Roy was doing a post-doc. And we got the suitcase, 3 months later, and yes, all that pesky precious gold was still in that unlocked suitcase.

We live in a world of magic and miracles. Never forget that.

So we were richer by $500–and one lesson in trust and faith and miracles.

* * *

And my grandfather? Did good come from losing his life’s savings? Well, he no longer invested in gold, but in land, and died with three houses–two in the centre of Mangalore, and one in Cubbon Road, the posh heart of Bangalore, near the erstwhile Residency, now Raj Bhavan, the Governor’s residence; and the granite Vidhana Soudha, the state legislature–houses that when sold provided part of the down-payment for my first house.

He worked harder as a result of the theft, and realised more deeply that all his wealth came from God–for, unlike my scholarly maternal grandfather, he was a self-made man, who made a fortune through uncanny brilliance. When his private practice dropped, he’d scold my grandmother, “Josephine, are you giving? Give. You are not giving; that is why I am not getting.”

Home-grown prosperity theology perhaps, but it worked. People got sick; he cured them, they rewarded him lavishly.

* * *

So my theological question really is: Can everything work for good?

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it can.

Though at times, this faith has been tested.

One amazing day on holiday in Sweden in August 2011 I felt God speak to me about my blog, and his plans for it.

And the next day, the camper van in which we were holidaying was broken into and we lost both our laptops, including the latest version of the memoir I am working on; another book I was working on which I have consequently abandoned (I hadn’t backed up my laptop for months); Roy’s laptop with precious holiday pictures; a new iPad, which sadly, didn’t even work in Sweden; and a couple of the girls’ iPods.

We did not report visible signs of breaking in, so the insurance did not cover it all.

2000-3000 pounds of loss! How could that work out for good?

* * *

Well, the burglary convinced me that when I felt Jesus next to me on the rocks at Gothenburg, Sweden, and turn and smile at me and tell me about the future of my blog, it was real. This was the consequent spiritual attack and undermining.

I had four more days on holiday, sans laptop, so I prayed for my blog, but could not work on it. And regrouping through strategizing in prayer is far better than working with brute force. For the want of a vision, the people perish.

The lost laptop recalibrated my habits. Though my husband, Roy, a Maths Ph.D with 3 post-docs had retired in 2010, I still did the business accounts, and our personal investing and finances, obsessively. I checked on our business sales daily. I could tell you our net worth to a penny, and moved money around investing everything optimally. I did not believe Roy would do this, so I did it myself, first thing in the morning.

My therapist thought this was a waste of the precious first thing in the morning hour, and so it was. What an uninspiring timewasting way to start one’s day, checking on credit cards and bank statements and sales—necessary when we were running our business with the slimmest of margins, but I continued it though we had been well into profit for nearly 3 years then.

So I turned the finances over to Roy, and it’s a weight off my chest, more brain space for writing and spiritual thought. He does not do money or business as I do—perhaps he does it better, perhaps worse—we argue about this when we are cross!–but we are eating and living. Well.

What good came out of the theft? I berated Roy to our therapist for his fail-safe, highly recommended method of protecting our laptops—throwing a towel over them—and for leaving the girls iPods in full view. And possibly leaving the van unlocked. The therapist said, “Well, he’ll never leave the car or laptops unlocked again.” And indeed he won’t. (Though he did not pay the 1 euro protection fee to the car-guarding people in Sicily this December and 2 of his favourite coats, and my least favourite coat were stolen from the trunk of our locked car!)

And I’ve saved scores of hours probably by no longer checking on our business sales or our personal finances. That hasn’t yet been converted to money—but, God willing, one day it will be.

* * *

Well, I returned from holiday in the Loire Valley at six a.m. yesterday, and walked into a nightmare.

My beloved Chrysler Town and Country mini-van that we had bought in American in 2001 was missing. Irene used to call it “the bupper van,” because I proudly said, “SuperMom in her SuperVan” whenever I drove it.

My front door was wide open. A door had been smashed in, and burglars had entered stealing our large screen TV, the first we’d bought; both my daughters’ laptops (we’d taken ours with us); both their iPods; Irene’s Nintendo Wii that she bought with her own money; my beloved black leather handbag; our silver cutlery set; Irene’s beloved costume jewellery–though all my valuable stuff I had, providentially put in a bank vault a few days before leaving.

The CID have been out, and the forensics unit finger-printing the crime scene,

Okay then, how does one process all this, from a God point of view?

1 God can bring good out of ANYTHING. Ask him to bring good out of your disasters and stand on the ramparts and wait and see what he will do.

The whole of Scripture which I believe is brilliant and inspired—from Adam and Eve’s choices; to Joseph rising from slave to premier; to Christ’s death releasing his very Spirit to live within us—is based on the premise that God can bring good out of evil.

2a We omitted to get contents insurance, foolishly. A false economy. We will now get it.

2B Irene who had a half term’s work on her stolen laptop will learn to back up. She had typed her notes in class; perhaps she will move to writing, then typing them at home, which is a form of revision and more theft-proof.

We will get the girls Macs which are more reliable.

3 Big benefit. Both Roy and I will work a little harder and hopefully smarter to earn money to replace all this stuff –a TV, 2 laptops, a handbag, etc.

I am a big believer in enough. We had enough to pay bills, so were spending more time in getting a bit fitter and a bit healthier, and spiritually stronger. But I guess we will work on making money till we’ve replenished our savings after replacing all this—and work settles the mind and heart.

4 We will practice trusting God. Just as physical fitness is theoretical until put to the test—running 3 miles, say, we do not know whether we really trust God until tested, by financial reverses, say.

Some things we only learn by practising them. Praise God in all circumstances. Rejoice always. In everything give thanks.

Learning and practising these things is no small gain.

5 We are reminded that our life is not really ours, anyway.

Our life is not ours; our body is not ours; our health is not ours, our money is not ours, our blogs are not ours, our time is not ours. God gives us these things, God can take them away.

Our health, our wealth, and our success is in God’s hands. The money to buy all the stuff that was stolen we acquired through God’s blessing on our endeavours. We will continue aligning with him, continue asking him to bless the work of our hands.

6 It’s a great opportunity to practice humour.

I greeted the police with, “Forgive us; our house is not normally this messy.”

And everyone laughed.

We are dealing with this annoyance with ironic humour, a great coping tool.

7 And we will practise being happy in the Lord anyway, because we still dwell in the fountain of God’s goodness and mercy and it still flows.

We will rejoice in the steady goodness of God, because God can bring good out of even this. We will learn rejoicing by practising it.

So what is the proper response of the victim of a burglary?

My children are a bit frustrated with how calmly I am taking it –but it’s this:

Be at peace. Possess your soul in patience. Let nothing disturb thee. Let nothing affright thee, in the words of Saint Teresa of Avila.

Worship the Lord who has given so many good things

Worship the Lord who can turn all things to good.

Be at rest, oh my soul.

P.S. Please pray we recover all our stuff.

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Have you ever been the victim of theft or burglary? How did you cope?

In Which All Our Faith is Patchy, But Even That is Potent

By Anita Mathias

My eighteen-year old daughter, Zoe, is at the School of Ministry at Catch the Fire, Toronto.

She and the other School of Ministry students ministered at the same Catch the Fire conference as John Arnott and Heidi Baker. They were told to pray boldly, that everyone gets to play, that everyone was equal before God.

However, she said, when John Arnott, a stocky matter-of-fact Canadian, stands before someone, hold out his hand, and declares, “Fire,” they fall down, “slain in the spirit.” However, when the 18-year olds hold out their hands and say “Fire,”—well, it’s not the same!

I laughed.

It is a problem in the spiritual life, isn’t it?

* * *

Why are some people’s prayers answered, and not others? Why are we healed when some pray, but not when others pray? Why do you know the prayer will be answered when you hear by a certain timbre in a woman’s voice that she has entered the throne room –but when another prays, you think, “Aw, sound nice”?

The pray-ers life has something to do with it. “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” 1 Peter 3:12. Wilfully persisting in sin creates a massive barrier between us and God.

But it also comes down to faith. Arnott has no doubt the Holy Spirit will come on request. He is sure the Fire wants to dwell within us, and he prays fervently, and it comes. Bill Johnson has no doubt God will heal, and so he does when Bill prays.

Last year, I heard Isabel Allum riff on all the lost objects which miraculously turned up as she prayed for them—contact lenses, medicine, satnavs, diamond earrings. She has no doubt they will be found, and God arranges this.

I am reading Mark Batterson’s The Circle Maker. Mark believes that God will give him horrendously expensive properties in Washington D.C. (where land goes for $14 million an acre) and God does–through a combination of donations, sheer chutzpah, persistence, and the wild success of Mark’s books, a significant portion of which he donates to the Church.

Heidi Baker tells stories of the dead being raised, of an orphanage gift of used stuffed dogs (feared in Africa) being changed to beads at her prayer, of the dead being raised to life, the blind seeing, the deaf hearing. She knows God, she has no doubt that God will step down to help us on request, and so he does.

* * *

The way to form a new habit is to take a goal (lose a pound a week, wake a hour earlier, read a book a week, write a thousand words a day) and divide it to its smallest measurable increment (250 words a day, wake 5 minutes early, read 5 pages a day, lose half a pound a week) and go from there.

In prayer, however, the opposite is true. Pray as big as you dare believe. Write down your dreams. If you desire to see what you’ve written doubled (and you may not!!), then pray that. Daily or weekly, pray through your lists of prayer-dreams. And take steps of faith in accordance with them.

Praying to lose weight? Eat more veggies. Praying to finish your book? Write first thing in the morning. Praying to become organized? Get rid of one thing a day. Praying to wake early? Well…do so.

* * *

We tend to see God’s hand in the areas in which we have the greatest faith that surely he will act. I have seen his miracles and deliverances in my finances most often, because, most of the time, I have an expectant faith that he will help me.

I have begun to pray with faith in creative areas, for God to give me books and for the first time in my life, am experiencing an anointing in writing. You know, when “the right words in the right order” come quickly and easily, as if from a power beyond myself.

After reading The Circle Maker, I have created prayer lists–a page for each of the 30+ areas or people I am praying for–and am praying through every dream, worry or ambition in my life. I am seeing things shift, expand, change at an accelerated rate. Small changes, but so many changes, coincidences and God-incidences, in so many areas, that I can hardly believe it! My faith is growing.

According to your faith be it done to you. Perhaps that’s why we see answers and miracles in one area in which we can see the kind face of Jesus as we pray, and know he will answer our prayers, and, yet remain stuck in another, in which we have less faith that he will help us.

Prayer is truly the greatest force in the world. I have long believed it intellectually. I am now gradually believing it with all my heart.

How Persephone Marlowe can Keep You Straight

By Anita Mathias

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When we moved to Oxford, and my daughter, Irene, was five, she sat next to a little girl in school called Persephone Marlowe.

And in church, to our surprise, there was Persephone Marlowe. And the whole Marlowe family who were lovely and became good friends of ours.

And when Irene was 10, I began to blog.

* * *

Now, blogging is an enormous vehicle of growth if you decide to be honest (since, anyway, one day all that is hidden shall be revealed).

And I was. I explored my discomfort with the church I currently attended (which wasn’t the wisest thing, and led me to having to leave it:-).

I explored my discomfort with contentious issues on the edges of faith. With those too ready to consign others to hell, with rigid positions on homosexuality, women’s roles, theology, or rigid inerrancy.

I threw the jigsaw of my faith on the floor, in mid-life, and reconstructed what I, Anita Mathias, really, really, believed rather than what I, Anita Mathias, had been taught.

And having questioned everything, I came back to a settled Mere Christian faith, and it was good. I felt at home in it.

* * *

And then I noticed that little Persephone Marlowe, now a beautiful teenager, was following my blog.

And, oddly, that settled the direction my blog was going to grow.

Persephone Marlowe was going to have plenty of her own faith shifts in time. We all do. But was I going to be the one to precipitate them? I, who know the anguish of questioning the very fabric of the faith so precious to me. It’s like jumping off a cliff trusting that the air will catch you.

I had asked my own daughters not to read my blog when I was working things out, so as not to scandalize then. The Holy Spirit would work on their faith in his own time. They continued to believe the conservative evangelical position taught in church, and I let them, while I was questioning–because I was questioning, and I hadn’t arrived, and some journeys can only be made alone, and one of those journeys is the journey of faith. In fact, my elder daughter Zoe’s faith is more conservative than mine, and when I don’t agree with everything Irene is taught at youth group, I am silent.

So could I, should I, be responsible for precipitating the faith-shifts of the teenagers who follow me, friends of Zoe, friends of Irene? Or should I celebrate the broad common ground of mere Christianity, rather than explore the exhausting, thin, low oxygen Machu Picchu air of dissent.

I decide. I probably didn’t believe everything my faith tradition taught in the way others believed it. But my common ground with other charismatic evangelicals was massive, and there was much to celebrate and rejoice.

There were a myriad celebratory posts I could write with good conscience, ideas which strengthened, encouraged, inspired and comforted me, and so might, if I were lucky, strengthen, encourage, inspire and comfort others.

I would major on the majors. Where I disagreed, I would largely be silent, unless I thought bad theology was actually harmful, in which case it would be my duty to speak.

* * *

When I tried to get my sister Shalini to join me in mischief, my mother used to say, If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Now I sure Jesus meant it rhetorically, but I decided since I loved Christ, and loved so much about the body of the Christ, I would rather write celebratory, positive, faith-filled posts than risk scandalizing, or denting the faith of Persephone Middleton and the other sweet friends of my daughters who follow my blog.

Will my blog be saccharine sweet? Nope. My no bull-shXt rule still applies. Fortunately, as Adrian Plass says, “God is nice and he likes me,” and so the central fact of the love of God for us provides us a multitude of subjects for blog posts that are sweet, and nourishing and also true. Thank heavens!