A God of small things...
hen I was first married, I used to go to church with my husband, out of habit, and when our children came along I took them too because I thought it was right. I felt a bit uncomfortable and out of place amongst Christians but eventually realised something was missing. I began to experience a hunger for the things of God, and through the prayers of my husband and friends I gradually came into a much more personal relationship with Him. Attendance at one of our church's mid-week home groups became the norm and as well as enjoying being able to meet with really good friends, I recognised my need to be fully baptised in water and to experience God's Holy Spirit in my life. Over twenty years ago, on a summer's evening in a tiny chapel in Berkshire, I was baptised and began to know God's power in my life.

Since then I have learnt that being a Christian hasn't prevented me from experiencing many difficulties...personal illness, family deaths, disappointments, hurts, to mention but a few. What has changed however has been my attitude towards coping with them, and my being able to rely fully on God. He knows all our weaknesses and all that happens to us, and He is totally faithful to those who put their trust in Him. The older I become, the more experience I have of being dependent on God, and in some ways I have been able to help others. I know that God is interested even in the small, everyday matters of life as well as the major issues, and I regularly pray that He will protect my children and grandchildren.

As I come more into my senior years I can look back and see God's unending goodness and faithfulness and this gives me hope and confidence for future. "...but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagle, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (Isaiah 40.31)
Daphne

o start, I need to tell you a little about myself now. I am the managing partner of one of the largest law firms in Cornwall, with a staff of 135. Managing lawyers is no easy task and requires patience, tenacity and most of all, confidence. I am told that I have done the job very well - so far.

The personal qualities, especially confidence, that are needed were not always there with me. I can still recall my trainer telling me just before I was let loose on the legal world, how hopeless I was. The intelligence and the capability was there, but without a huge change in my self confidence I was going to get nowhere. He was not wrong, but he might have put it more kindly. I was not the stuff of success.

So how did I get to where I am from there? How we see ourselves is often dictated by the way in which others have spoken about us or treated us in the past. Some of us have some massive chips on our shoulders that hinder us from getting on. The messages that we hear are not always true. At the time that I have spoken of I had believed a lot of untrue messages about myself and my abilities - putting me down and destroying confidence.

n the same way that we have heard of God healing people physically, so he can also do this with our minds and emotions. The Bible talks of us being "fearfully and wonderfully made" - Psalm 134 verse 14. In the Creation story it talks of God having been pleased with all that he had made. These truths apply to us as individuals. Understanding these truths rather than the things that I had learned from others began to transform my thinking and rebuild the confidence that I had lost. As part of that process I had to deal with the way I felt others had treated me.

This has been a long process of facing up to my failings and allowing God to change me and the way in which I think. God's healing really does work, those who have known me for a long time have commented on how have I have changed. Leadership is still scary, but I am not held back now by my weaknesses and failings.
Jeremy

Firm foundations
leven years ago I lay in a hospital recovering from an emergency operation, with tubes in places that tubes shouldn't really be, and it dawned on me that for the first time since being a baby I was totally dependent on others.

I had been a Christian many years, my churchgoing parents had given me a good foundation; I had kicked over the traces in my late teens and early twenties, but the foundations had held firm. I was involved in a local church, had many family responsibilities following the death of my daughter-in-law, had a busy, demanding secular job and I had reduced to a very weak, sore man, not knowing at that time whether the cancer had been fully dealt with. I can remember asking God, "What are you doing with me?" A few days later, in the luxury of a bath, and having been left on my own for a few minutes by the nurse, I prayed. I recall, even now, praying, "Father God, I can do nothing...I give You my family, my church life, my job and my life...do what you want". In moments I was aware of a surge through me as if God's presence was inside me. I knew then that whatever the future held, it would be OK...God was in control and I was at peace.

Since then I have constantly known God's guidance, His unending faithfulness and His grace to continue loving and forgiving me, even when I mess things up for the umpteenth time. In a few weeks' time I reach retirement, and as old age begins to gallop towards me, I have no fears of the future. I know my wife and I are secure in God's hands. As God's Son Jesus once said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me" (John 14.1).
Geoff

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