Wednesday 12 April 2017

Like many disabled Christians I have often felt the very subtle, unspoken pressure to be cured of my disability.

In my time I have been accused of a lack of faith, of simply not praying hard enough, I have been told that there must be some unacknowledged area of sin in my life and that if only I would repent and confess then I would be cured.

I have to tell you I think this all comes from a lack of understanding of the difference between healing and cure. 

For the ten years or so after being diagnosed I simply ran away, the prospect of my onsetting disability was simply too much for me to contemplate so for years, I ran, I lied, I hid, I refused help, I refused to talk about it. All of this behaviour did untold damage to all my relationships, with my wife, my parents and family members and most of my friends. After tea years of this the truth is that I found myself late at night, standing in the middle of the Tyne Bridge, very seriously contemplating suicide. 

After standing there for well over an hour, I lost my nerve and walked home. 

The next day I began a long process of exploring what help and advice might be out there for someone losing their sight. I told not a soul about this process for fear I might not be able to go through with it, I wanted to know I could deal with it before telling anyone. 

After searching through local blind societies, charities like RNIB and Guide Dogs I was eventually offered an assessment to see if I would get a guide dog. It was at this point that I told my wife Denise what I'd been up to, she could not believe it. 

While all this was going on I was an active member of the Northumbria Community, a Celtic Christian, a new monastic. Imagine then my joy when eventually I was matched with my first dog, a dog called Abbot, me a new monastic being guided by an abbot, here was God telling me very loudly that this was the right thing, I've never looked back.

Getting Abbot and now having Jarvis has been the single most transformative experience of my life. Have I been healed of my disability? No, indeed it is in real terms far worse now. Have I been cured? Absolutely without doubt YES! My blindness holds very little fear for me now, in the 16yrs since Abbot arrived I have rebuilt my life, I've done an MA, changed career, moved house and my marriage has been totally transformed. To all those people back then who were demanding a miracle, all I can say is I have had not just one but many. 

This video was made for another organisation that Bill and I used to run, not all of it is relevant here but so much is.  


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