I am really looking forward to Easter this year. I have always enjoyed Easter more than Christmas or any other time of the year, and despite the relatively late arrival of the season it is so welcome this time around. Selfishly, this has a lot to do with the help I have received in overcoming chronic pain. After 15 years of battling with chronic pancreatic pain, one of the worst pains known to man, I have at last found some relief. The neuro-stimulator that was implanted at Guy's Hospital, London, in mid February, and then switched on a couple of weeks later, is proving an over-whelming success! At last, I feel like a new man, and can actually look forward to celebrating this wonderful time of the year.
Diane and I will be travelling to Cardiff in Wales where we will be taking part in the Easter Celebrations in The City Temple, the church where I was the Senior Pastor prior to getting ill. It is such a joy to be able to even plan to do this with any degree of confidence, but that is how powerfully the equipment has affected us both. Praise God for this mercy!
Of course we wish it could have been done sooner. And I still have to be careful with food and abstain from alcohol because of the underlying condition, but it is great to be pain controlled and to be coming off the large amounts of morphine that have been necessary up until now. I am doing that gradually so as to avoid withdrawal symptoms, but am already down to one third of what I was taking a month ago.
I hope that you too will find help, peace, life and healing this Easter. After all, that's what it is all about.