I do want to take this opportunity to thank you for all the work you have done over so
many years …. and the way one of your Bibles made such a major impact on my life
55 years ago.
In the late 60s I was a Music Student at the Royal College of Music; I went straight
from boarding school into life in London and I was excited to be studying in such a
prestigious institution. At the time, Twiggy and Mary Quant were the famous models
whom we all aspired to follow ….. and the swinging 60s were well underway ….
making it a time of unprecedented freedoms and new lifestyles (for good or ill).
However, my weekly College timetable was somewhat thin as we were expected to
spend a lot of time practicing, and the result was that I became quite lonely and
unhappy. Within a short time of starting my wonderful piano & cello studies I began to
diet and this led to a fear of food and the circumstances around which it featured.
This hidden life of Anorexia continued throughout my 3 years at the College and then
through a year’s scholarship in Geneva. My parents and family were obviously very
concerned, but nothing seemed to change my eating habits and I was resistant to
their pleas to stop. It was as if I was blind to the dangers I was putting myself into and
yet I was constantly frightened of being trapped by well-meaning others who wanted
to make me eat.
After another year at the age of 22, I came to a sudden full stop, literally unable to
walk after an exotic holiday around Turkey resulting in bruised and broken feet which
wouldn’t heal. A dear doctor suggested I might like to see a friend of his ….a
Professor Crisp ….. who might help me. I weakly agreed.
Three weeks later I was ushered into his stark office where he sat behind a plain
desk, and I sat opposite him. He looked at me in a straight, uncompromising way and
asked if I wanted to live or die?
I replied that I didn’t want to die …. but I didn’t know how to live…. and I didn’t know
what to do.
He told me he would help me but I had to follow everything he suggested and that
would mean going to hospital.
So I entered St. George’s Hospital, near Wimbledon and I was put into a single room
on a psychiatric ward and told that under no circumstances was I to leave my bed. I
was given a strict regime of meals, everything was monitored and I had nurses and
doctors who would come and see me during the day.
In one fell swoop my busy teaching and social life ceased, I was cut off from
everything I had been actively involved with, and all my friends dropped away
thinking I’d gone mad.
At first it was a shock because I had to adjust to a complete loss of freedom, and it
was strange being in a ward of people who were suffering a wide range of problems I
had no idea about. Inevitably I found the imposed, tight regime was very tough to
accept but there really wasn’t any escape, and in time it became strangely bearable
to the point I would even look forward to my 4.00pm cheese sandwiches!
I appreciated the conversations with the Doctor and psychiatric nurses …. some of
whom were much the same age as me …. and I grew to be able to examine my life
with a bit of detachment. But there was still great uncertainty about what I was going
to do in the future, and I had no idea how to make sense of everything that had
happened to me.
Then one day, about 8 weeks after arriving, I realised how bored I was in this tiny
room with no books or activities to distract me …. and so I looked around for
something to do. I turned to my bedside locker and opened a drawer, and there lay a
Bible….. the only book in the room.
I took it out and realised with a slight sense of shame that I had never really read it
even though I had been to a Christian School and had been confirmed as a Teenager.
So I thought I’d better ‘give it a go’ and decided to read the easiest selection, the
Psalms. This I did without much reaction one way or another …. until I reached
Psalm 139 ….. and then the light went on!
In that very moment I grasped the amazing knowledge that God knew everything
about me, He had made me, and He loved me. I mattered to Him and my life wasn’t a
waste of time or futile….. ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, Too great for me
to know’. It was an awakening unlike any other because this was God revealing
Himself to me and it was not about me trying to work myself out.
From that moment on things changed inwardly100%, I suddenly realised how blind I
had been and what limits I had imposed upon myself. God was literally opening my
eyes and my heart was beginning to sing. So when I came to leave 3 weeks later,
although I was heading into a world that had significantly changed outwardly,
nevertheless I was deeply assured within that God was going with me into the future
and He would be guiding my steps.
And throughout all of my following adventures, that has never changed….. Praise The
Lord.
That one Gideon Bible hidden in a hospital drawer opened up a new pathway for me
….. away from inner death to Life with the Lord. His Word brought healing and
restored Life …. and I’m sure I’m not the only one to be eternally grateful.
