Still Walking

I don't really know how you're supposed to give a testimony.

I suspect you're supposed to start with how bad things were, explain how you found God, and finish with everything being considerably better.

Mine doesn't work like that.

I've known God for a long time. I've walked away, come back, argued, questioned, prayed, believed, doubted people, trusted the wrong people and occasionally wondered what on earth God was doing.

But I don't think I've ever really stopped believing that He was there.

Now I'm seriously ill, and that has stripped away quite a lot of nonsense.

I'm frightened sometimes.

There. I've said it.

I can talk quite calmly about dying. I believe in heaven. Sometimes I even look forward to it. But that doesn't mean I'm wonderfully serene about everything that happens between here and there.

I'm frightened of becoming more ill. I'm frightened of losing my independence. I'm frightened of needing more and more help. I worry about Patricia and what happens when both of us need somebody at the same time.

And I'm lonely.

That's probably one of the hardest things for me to admit.

I want people around me, but I hate asking them to come. I want help, but asking for it feels selfish. I know people have their own lives and their own problems, and I don't want my illness to become something that everybody else has to organise their lives around.

So sometimes I sit wanting somebody to notice that I need them while simultaneously doing my best not to tell anybody that I need them.

Not particularly clever, but there you are.

I've also discovered that being seriously ill doesn't automatically turn you into a saint.

I still get angry. I get irritated with people. I complain. I can be unreasonable. I laugh at completely inappropriate things. I occasionally feel sorry for myself and then feel guilty because somebody somewhere is worse off than I am.

I've been disappointed by Christians.

I've also been astonished by them.

Sometimes the people I expected to be there weren't. Sometimes somebody I hardly expected anything from did one small thing—a message, a visit, an offer of help—and it meant more than they could possibly have known.

And somewhere in all of this I've had to separate God from the people who claim to represent Him.

People can disappoint me.

Churches can disappoint me.

I can certainly disappoint myself.

God hasn't.

That doesn't mean I understand Him. I don't.

It doesn't mean I've received everything I've prayed for. I haven't.

And it certainly doesn't mean I'm dying particularly well.

I'm making it up as I go along.

But beneath the fear, anger, laughter, illness and confusion, there's something that has remained surprisingly solid.

I know that I am loved by God.

Not because I've been a particularly good Christian. Not because I've got my theology sorted out. Not because I've managed to face illness courageously.

Simply because He loves me.

Perhaps that's what my testimony really is.

After all these years, after everything that's happened and with whatever time I have left, I'm still walking with God.