Medicine, Botany, Faith (and not to mention Magic Potion!)
Joni Eareckson Tada reflects on the 50th anniversary of the diving accident that made her a quadriplegic and the faithfulness of the Lord through it all.
Source: www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/reflections-on-50th-anniversary-of-my-diving-accident/
Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it’s Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump…
Source: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/as-an-atheist-i-truly-believe-africa-needs-god-3xj9bm80h8m
The Big Conversation is a video series from the Unbelievable? radio show featuring theological debates with world-class thinkers across the Christian and atheist community – Discussing faith, science and what it means to be human. Source: www.thebigconversation.show
In recent years, I’ve been listening to the Unbelievable? podcast hosted by Justin Brierley a lot. While it’s hosted by a Christian radio station, it’s quite unique in that it usually involves a dialogue or debate between a Christian and a non-Christian. This diversity in guests, has come to be reflected in the diversity of it’s listeners. Despite’s Justin not hiding his own Christian beliefs, he moderates the discussions very well, and is very good at summarising the opposing views of the guests, and playing devils advocate when needed.
It’s been going for over 10 years now, and has gone from strength to strength, not only in popularity, but also in the quality of production, and the calibre of the guests. But in recent months, Justin has really taken it up a notch with “The Big Conversation” series. Now, as well as audio, there is a video recording of the discussions available on a revamped Youtube channel. The first few have been great, and I look forward to the rest of the series after the UK summer!
I still remember quite vividly the unfolding nightmare that was my melanoma diagnosis in 2013. It was bad news after bad news after bad news. One kick in the teeth after another. First it was “There’s something big on your chest X-ray that shouldn’t be there”. Later that day it was that “it’s also in your abdomen”. A couple of days later it was diagnosed as melanoma. A CT scan early the next week showed it was also in my brain, which ruled me out of pretty much all of the clinical trials of new melanoma treatments. A follow up MRI a few days later showed it was even worse than the CT had suggested which meant stereotactic radiotherapy to the brain mets was no longer an option and I required urgent neurosurgery followed by whole-brain radiotherapy. There was one remaining hope in the form of a targeted therapy which had shown promise, namely dabrafenib, but again I was disappointed to discover that my melanoma didn’t have the mutation that this drug targeted so it wasn’t an option either.
This torrent of bad news was upsetting and frustrating for me and my family, and in amongst trying to wrap my head around each new piece of bad news, I was often left wondering where was God in all this? Did He really care? Why wasn’t He allowing me access to these treatment options? He seemed determined to just let me die, and quickly at that! Don’t get me wrong, there was lots of provision from God in other ways, such as the practical and spiritual support of my family and church, but I was still struggling with these darker questions as well, and wondering what was going on.
This was a video my church produced last year to record part of my story, particularly the last few years of it. I hope you “enjoy” it!
Another post from my first attempt at blogging, going back to late 2013. I still find Craig’s work intellectually stimulating, and spiritually encouraging today. I think my faith is even more “reasonable” now than it was 4 years ago despite, or perhaps because of, what I have been through over that time.
These days “faith” seems to be most often talked about as a polar opposite to “reason”, “logic” or “rational thought”, and increasingly, “science”. If you have faith in something then that means you believe it, but without having any objective evidence to support it. Sometimes, the insinuation by others is that you believe it even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. As Mark Twain would say “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”
