When I was a teenager, each summer used to see me attending a Christian venture, where about 100 of us, all aged from 14 to 18, would gather for a fun-filled holiday. (See here, if you want to get a flavour for what’s involved.)
Apart from participating in some incredible activities and adventures, we spent time exploring life with Jesus, and I gained many long-lasting, life-enhancing friends, some of whom I’m still in touch with now, thirty years later.
One of the best things about Christian ventures is the amazing, humble, committed leaders, who helped us explore how the Bible could apply to ordinary every day life, and who gave freely of their time, to support us, as we explored the Christian faith.
One of my best leaders was a wonderful woman called Ruth. She’s about a decade older than me, but we have kept in touch over the years – and, whenever our paths have crossed, we simply pick up where we last left off, oblivious to the passing of time. It’s one of those friendships that has survived the test of time.
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Ruth has the most amazing back story of how she survived a near-fatal car accident in Australia. It happened before I knew her.
Put simply, a driver jumped a red traffic light, and ploughed into the side of her. She was effectively ‘crushed’ and in excruciating pain, because she had sustained multiple broken bones, and complex internal injuries.
To put it bluntly, she should have died at the scene of the accident.
But it wasn’t long before people were praying for Ruth, back home in the UK, as well as in Australia.
When she eventually left hospital, after seven long weeks, her medical team called her ‘The Miracle Girl’. It was, quite literally, a miracle that she had made it through.
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Now an ordained Minister in the Church of England, based in London in the UK, Ruth recently sent me a recording of a conversation she had with some of her parishioners, which is now available as a podcast.
In it, she reflects on life and faith, including what happened in the aftermath of her horrific accident – and how her faith, badly battered at the time, somehow managed to remain intact.
I really commend this podcast to you. It will take you just under half an hour to listen to the whole thing. But if you want to cut to the chase, jump in at 6.20 (ish) and listen from there for about six minutes.
The link is here.
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Have you ever had a life experience, which has caused you to doubt God’s goodness, and made you want to walk away from your faith?
Have you, or someone you know, ever gone through so much suffering that you’ve wondered whether God really exists?
May Ruth’s story inspire and encourage you to trust afresh that God can, and does, work miracles.
And, as ever, if you have any thoughts, reflections, anecdotes or stories that you would like to share, please feel free to leave them in the comments below.
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Photo by Sébastien Barbieri on Unsplash.
6 Comments
So encouraging, choosing hope, choosing faith. I can equate with that, even though I can’t imagine what Ruth went through. For me it was a passage in one of the Narnia books – the Silver Chair – where Puddlegum was challenged to forget Narnia as being just in his imagination, and his response: ‘As for me, I shall live like a Narnian, even if there isn’t any Narnia’ resonated. Like Ruth, I realised that I could make that choice to hold on to what I had believed, and lived in the reality of, for most of my life, in the midst of not understanding the whys, because living in His kingdom was far better than the alternative.
Thank you Joy! I’m so glad to hear that Ruth’s story has resonated with you. Thanks for sharing such a powerful quote from the Silver Chair. It’s a great reminder of the choice we each have to make.
Amazing story! I’m looking forward to listening to the podcast later – thanks for sharing these resources which are so faith-boosting.
Thanks for the encouragement, Betty Boo! I’m glad to hear you’re finding the blog to be faith-boosting!
Hi Joy and Betty Boo
So glad to read your comments- thanks for taking the time to engage with my story!
God Bless
Ruth
Thanks for dropping by, Ruth! I’m so glad you’ve been encouraged by people engaging with your story.