At this point, my doctor consulted with his colleagues, and it was decided to prescribe OxyContin as a means of pain relief. I call this the start of the ‘OxyContin trap’, because it was a very addictive medication and the pain relief started to become ineffective after about eight hours instead of lasting twelve hours as it was supposed to. After several months it became even less effective as my body became used to it.

As we now know, the misuse of opioids such as oxycodone has become a worldwide epidemic, with millions becoming addicted and many dying from its effects when used to get a high.

In my own case, I spent the next six to seven years practically bedbound with migraines that were by then constant—24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It was only through the support of my wife, Alison, and my family that I was able to survive this time. I was blessed in several ways apart from them: the presence of our Lord and my relationship with him, and the constant presence of my faithful dog, Sonic.

They both would spend the days and nights with me—my faith in God in a spiritual way, and Sonic lying next to me on the bed, curled up in the crook of my knee. These were long years, and I had many dark nights of the soul.

Several times I attempted to detox from OxyContin, but unfortunately the pain—and the addictive nature of the drug—won out, and I was forced to continue using it. This, however, caused another problem as my doctors started to treat me as a drug addict and blamed me for becoming addicted to OxyContin, even though they were the ones who had prescribed it in the first place.

This became the course of my life for several years, with one doctor after another refusing to treat me. The cause of the problem was forgotten.

At one stage we were travelling 100 kilometres each way, each week, to see a doctor in another town. I can remember lying in my bed with a pillow wrapped around my head, just trying to cope with the pain.

During the years 2005 to 2009, we travelled to Sydney on multiple occasions to see some of the most senior neurologists, each a professor in the field. Multiple MRIs and brain scans did not reveal any obvious cause for the migraines. Again, each neurologist tried different medications; however, none of them worked. It was thought at one stage that I was getting referred pain from arthritis in my neck. Even anti-inflammatories had no effect.

At one stage I was put on cortisone for the inflammation, but to no effect other than to pile on a stack of weight, taking me up to 150 kg.

One small light was a specialist in Newcastle, Dr Schwarzer, a pain specialist. Every six months we would travel to Newcastle Private Hospital, and he would ablate the occipital nerves in the back of my neck.

This was done under live imaging and would take about one and a half hours to complete. An electrode would be inserted into the back of my neck and would cauterise the occipital nerve. During this procedure, copious amounts of lignocaine anaesthetic were injected into the back of my neck.

Other treatments that were tried were a 48-hour lignocaine infusion and, at a later date, a 48-hour ketamine infusion. Neither of these had any effect whatsoever on the migraines I was experiencing.

Finally, around 2007 a neurologist at Royal North Shore Hospital transferred me from OxyContin to methadone, and I was finally free of the addictive effects of OxyContin. Unfortunately, it took quite a large dose of methadone to counteract the effects of OxyContin.

I must say at this stage that neither OxyContin nor methadone was able to control the migraines.

By 2009 I had made my peace with life and death and had started to pray for the Lord to take me. I would have been quite happy to leave this world and pain behind. Even my family realised that I had come to this position privately because they no longer wanted me to suffer.

I must admit that, looking back at this period, I have many blank memories, because in May 2010 I suffered a stroke caused by a bleed on the left-hand side of my brain. Fortunately, I realised something was wrong (I could not add up 2 + 2), and we were able to get to the hospital very quickly. This meant that the worst effects of the stroke were somewhat mitigated.

Since the stroke, I have had to learn to write properly again with my right hand, have suffered major sight loss in my right eye, and now experience an inability to cope with changes in temperature. It appears that my body’s thermostat has been damaged, and I mostly live within an air-conditioned environment. The other side effect is that I suffer from extreme tiredness.

At first, it was thought that my tiredness was from sleep apnoea. However, after being diagnosed with sleep apnoea and buying a CPAP machine, the extreme tiredness remained. This means that I only have a certain amount of energy on any given day. I have since learned that this tiredness can be a lasting effect from the stroke.

What I should mention at this point is that one of the after-effects of the stroke was that my migraine headaches stopped overnight. I was left with only mild daily headaches that were controllable with over-the-counter medications. In my honest opinion, this was a divine healing.

Alison and I, however, were not happy with what the specialists were telling us about possible causes of the stroke. Nor did they suggest any post-stroke therapies such as physiotherapy. As such, we sought advice from Dr Schwarzer in Newcastle, and he referred us to a neurologist at John Hunter Hospital (Dr Levi, now Prof Levi).

When I attended Dr Levi’s rooms at John Hunter Hospital, he examined the same MRIs and scans that were taken here in Tamworth. Within 10 minutes he diagnosed that it appeared I had a blocked carotid artery on the left-hand side. No more than 20 minutes later I was in a room having an ultrasound on my carotid arteries, which revealed that my left carotid artery was 95% blocked.

As a result, I was booked in for a left carotid endarterectomy, during which a stent was placed in the artery. The surgery was carried out by a very kind doctor whose name may sound unusual—Dr Organ, a vascular surgeon at John Hunter Hospital.

Even though it would seem at this stage my medical problems were behind me, I still had one battle yet to fight: to detox from all the methadone and medications that I had been placed on for so many years.

At this stage, I had found a doctor in Tamworth who was willing to work with me through the medical issues. We discussed my future regarding medications, and he informed me that getting off methadone was harder than getting off the drug heroin. As such, I should not expect to get off methadone; rather, I would probably have to learn to live with it.

However, I am somewhat stubborn, and that was not something I was willing to accept. Consequently, I virtually locked myself in my bedroom for nearly two years and gradually weaned myself off methadone, diazepam, and other medications.

This was not an easy time, as on many occasions I cut the dosage back too much, too quickly, and ended up in hospital with heart palpitations and other withdrawal symptoms. Some of my family really could not understand what I was trying to accomplish; they could not understand why I would stay locked away in my bedroom. Personally, this was probably the hardest part of my recovery. I found it very hard to explain to them what I was trying to achieve, particularly when they came to visit and I did not participate in any activities with them.

Finally, after about eighteen months to two years, I was free not only of methadone but also of all the other medications that I had been placed on. Sometime during 2012, I started to drive again after almost ten years.

There are many other things that took place during these years; however, as I mentioned, because of the stroke I have many blank memories, so this account is really more of a summary of what took place over ten or more years.

This is Part 2 of a 2‑part post. Previous: Part 1 → Chapter10 Prt-1-of-2

Firstly, the anxiety that I had been suffering during my first few weeks of college came back. Thinking that I was doing the right thing—especially since I had accepted a call to Carlton Kogarah Baptist Church—I sought the help of a psychiatrist to deal with the anxiety.

This turned out to be the greatest mistake of my life. He was mainly interested in using drugs to treat the anxiety, whereas until that point I had been seeing a counsellor and that had been working quite successfully. Over a period of weeks, I had so many bad reactions to the different medications he prescribed that one night I ended up on the floor, curled up in the foetal position.

As a result, I spent four weeks in a private hospital recovering from this experience, only to be left on a medication called Rivotril. This medication seemed to stabilise my anxiety and mood at the cost of feeling drugged out.

Secondly, the other health issue that was to dominate my life for the next 25 years was migraines. These started one night, out of the blue, while I was watching TV with my family. A sudden, intense pain began inside my head, like someone was trying to pry it apart with an expanding bolt. The pain was at a level I had never experienced before.

The end result was that I was in no fit state to take up the call to be the pastor at Carlton Kogarah Baptist Church. I was forced to make the hardest decision that I had ever made, which was to turn down the calling (one might say the end of a dream).

Fortunately, when we left for Sydney in 1993, we had rented out our home, which made it possible for us to move back to Tamworth in February 1998. During the first six months after our return, I sought the help of another specialist in Tamworth, who admitted me to hospital and changed the Rivotril to a more modern SSRI antidepressant. There was a period of weeks before that medication started to work, and I was able to begin rebuilding my life.

The migraines, however, were to remain a constant problem, and initially I was treated with Panadeine Forte for the headaches and diazepam for the anxiety that was a residual effect from all the medications the psychiatrist had tried.

Gradually, I was able to start working part-time, doing computer maintenance, coding, and repairs. By the middle of 1999, I had started to work part-time as a voluntary chaplain at Tamworth Base Hospital. Here, I gravitated towards working with people with mental-health issues like my own.

I split my time between computer work and chaplaincy, working in a tent-maker style of ministry. During this period, despite the migraine headaches (at this stage only episodic), I was able to work alongside people who were suffering from depression, anxiety, and loss, and in some cases I sat at the bedsides of the dying.

In one particular instance I was called to the hospital to assist with a young mother whose baby had just passed away. The nursing unit manager and I were able to comfort her with emotional and spiritual support. We then took hand and foot imprints of the child so that she had something to remember her by and something to hang on to.

This was a particularly challenging time for me personally because of the age of both the mother and child. The young mother was so grief-stricken that she had trouble letting go of the baby’s body, even though it was turning blue.

On another occasion, I was called to the intensive care ward to help mediate a disagreement between warring members of a family standing on either side of their dying relative. The nurses in intensive care had asked if I could mediate for them so that they did not have to call security and have the family removed from the hospital. Fortunately, after some stern words and compassionate pleas, the family were able to put their differences aside and simply spend time with the dying family member.

Likewise, on another occasion I was called to intensive care to sit with a man who was awaiting an air ambulance to take him to Sydney for heart surgery. When I mentioned I was a chaplain, he responded, “I don’t believe in God.” My response was that I was not there for religion but rather to sit and keep him company while he waited.

Several hours later, as he was being wheeled out of the ward, I asked him if he would like me to pray for him, as his outlook for recovery was not good. His reply—“Yes, I would like that”—was not surprising.

There were many other experiences I had over those five years that were similar to those I had just mentioned, but gradually the migraines became more persistent and severe, eventually forcing me to stop work altogether.

At times, I was taken to the doctor or the hospital in the middle of the night and given a morphine injection to try to relieve the pain of the migraines.

I found myself spending most of my days in a dark room, lying on the bed, trying to endure the pain.

That dark room became my whole horizon. I didn’t know it then, but the next door to open would promise relief and usher in a longer night. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).

This is Part 1 of a 2‑part post. Next: Part 2 → Chapter 11 (Part 2 of 2)

There were many experiences during my college years that caused this theological pain. However, it was no more clearly highlighted than during the latter months of my third year during outreach to a church in northern New South Wales. 

I had been chosen to lead a team to the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales and by chance of the pastor of the local church happened to be an old friend of mine. He had nurtured me during the early days of my Christian walk. 

I was to come to realise how far I had come on my own journey of discovery when during a very innocent conversation while discussing how we studied apologetics at college he objected. 

I was dismayed that my old friend was so vehement in his displeasure over the way in which we debated different worldviews as a means of learning apologetics. I happened to mention that we would each be given a different world view on which to debate and that I had been chosen to debate the Existentialists point of view. 

From my own prospective I saw no problem with the manner in which we were being taught how to counter other theological and esoteric points of view of others. Unfortunately, my old friend was somewhat disgusted with the whole process and felt that it was against the will of God and that we should not do it in such a manner. 

I think what struck me the most was how narrow his worldview had become. I can understand that somebody who had been a Christian all their life could hold this narrow view and that this was a result of, from my prospective anyway, a fear of the unknown forces that come into play when one questions the facts of the historicity of the Bible. 

This narrow worldview has become entrenched within the fundamental Christian Right and is unable to deal with the apparent discrepancies found within the pages of Scripture. The whole issue of Biblical inerrancy and the way in which fundamentalist Christian groups hang on to what is becoming increasingly a very strict and rigid dogma is a topic for another discussion. 

For now it would suffice to say that I have moved beyond believing that the Bible is 100% historically accurate. This does not mean that I had abandoned “the soul of Scripture” (2 Timothy 3:16) as a premise for interpreting the Bible but rather accepted that there were errors with regard to translation, dates and numbers within its pages. 

This was to be an issue that I would struggle with for many years. Today I still believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and that he guided those who wrote it and interpreted it so that it never lost its original meaning and purpose (2 Timothy 3:16). I have however been able to come to a point where I now can accept that these errors exist and that they do not in any way change the Bible’s intent, meaning or message. 

To those on the fundamentalist right, this would be anathema to their sensibilities and would effectively close the door to my being accepted amongst them. This would probably be the single most important change, at least theologically, that I underwent during my time at college. It is however, the single most important theological change that I believe was necessary for me to become an effective servant of God. 

As result I am no longer bound by the frailties of the fundamentalist position especially in facing the critics of Biblical inerrancy. 

Moving on, as my third year at college wound down I was faced with the dilemma of not being able to afford to pay my fees for my fourth and final year. God had provided for us marvellously during the first three years of college through the sale of our business, however those funds were now becoming increasingly in short supply. 

I had been fortunate in that I had picked up some work cleaning offices in a complex at the rear of Royal North Shore Hospital early in my second year at college. Likewise, our Lord had provided other means of supporting us financially. Probably the most memorable of these occasions was when we need to buy some new glasses for eldest son who had needed them since the age of six. 

We had decided to step out in faith and order his new glasses not knowing where the funds would come from. As we did not wish to create a sense of anxiety in his wearing glasses we had always provided him with good quality and stylish frames instead of the cheap black plastic heavy types that were available for a lower cost. 

This had always been paramount in our thinking when buying him glasses, especially, because over the years he had suffered terribly from being bullied, just because he wore glasses. This time we had no idea where the funds would come from and as such we turned it over to our Lord and left him. 

To our surprise, on attending church that Sunday I was presented with an envelope from one of the ladies in the church at Clemton Park. I was told that it was a gift from all of the latest groups in the church. Late that evening after Alison and I have returned home we opened the envelope only to find that it contained almost exactly the amount that we needed to purchase his glasses. 

This was not the first time that our Lord had provided for us and it was not to be the last. During the holiday break at the end of my third year (Christmas 1996/97) I was asked to take over the duties of the College maintenance Officer while he was on holidays. 

During the Christmas break I was able to earn enough money to pay for all of my tuition fees for my final year at college. Our prayers had been answered as our Lord once again demonstrated his provision for us. 

I should at this stage mention the struggles to Alison and I underwent with regards to our children’s education. During the years up to and including the year prior to our departure for college we had been able to invest in private school education for our children. We had made the decision to put them into a private Christian school because we became concerned that the public school system was letting them down badly. As a result we had seen their grades improve beyond our expectations. 

On our arrival in Sydney in 1994 we enrolled our children back into public education with our two boys going to Peter Board High school and our daughter going to Kent Road primary school just up the road from college. Our concerns for our boys turned out to be unfounded as they quickly assimilated themselves into the school making friends quite easily. 

However, the same cannot be said for our daughter who struggled badly to come to terms with not only attending a different school but also attending a separate school from her brothers. I can remember that for the first several months my daughter would cry all the way to school and that quite often once my wife left her there she herself would be in tears as she walked back home. 

Fortunately by the time we entered into our fourth year of college all three of our children were attending Peter Board high school and doing very well academically. Once again we saw this as God providing for us.

Theologically my first year had been very challenging as I was introduced to new ways of thinking and new perspectives on issues that I felt that I had already come to terms with. I started to realise that the study of Scripture from a critical perspective was challenging my very understanding of my faith. As a result after much prayer and seeking guidance of the Holy Spirit, I knew that a decision to open myself up to change was the right one.

Having come from a very fundamental Baptist background, I tended to see things in black and white. This had the result of my tending to be a bit to rigid when looking at some of the paradoxes contained in Scripture. One of the first things I learned during my first year was that the Bible does contain errors or for want of a better word mistranslations. I had no problem believing that the Bible was the inspired word of God but to find that it contained within its pages errors of translation was at first very challenging.

One comes to mind immediately and that is in the story of Solomon where the King James Version translates the Hebrew in Second Chronicles 1:16 as "Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn". This has been proven as an incorrect translation and during the 20th century archaeological research has given deeper insight to the events of the time and has enabled the more accurate translation used today as "Solomon had horses imported from Egypt and Kue;". These apparent errors in the Bible were for me very challenging and it was not until I became prepared to sit down and examine the evidence that I realised that when it comes to the overall accuracy of the biblical account and matters of faith it made no difference.

I was to realise as I opened myself to examine the evidence under the guidance of the Holy Spirit that the Bible itself teaches us that there are many grey areas when it comes to a strict and rigid interpretation of Scripture. I was to learn that the context was the important issue at hand and without understanding the historical context, it was possible to mistranslate or misinterpret what the Bible was actually saying.

This in effect turned my faith upside down. As I sat back and observed some of the other students who had started studies at the same time that I had, I realised the reason why some of them had decided not to continue with this critical study of Scripture was that it was just too challenging to one's faith. It became evident both from personal experience and from the number of students who did not return for a second year that unless your faith was deeply rooted in more than Scripture it was possible to become disillusioned. It would be nice I felt if I had just a simple faith that required no knowledge or understanding. However, I realised that my own personality was against me here and that I needed more than just a simplistic understanding of that faith.

Likewise, as I examined myself and tried to reinterpret my faith's journey so far I came to the realisation that I had made the right choice in coming to college. The uncertainties caused by the dramas during those first six months of college where I was forced to question if we had made the right decision in coming at all was gradually being washed away.

In hindsight now many years after college I realised it was this dichotomy of understanding that may well have been the cause of why many whom I have met in the intervening years were to lose their faith either temporally or permanently as a result of the experience. I realised it was the rigidness and attitudes of those with whom I had grown as a young Christian that had caused me to accept the same values.

This realisation had a transformational affect on my faith. It went from the more insular understanding of how we were to express our faith to one of openness and tolerance towards other Christians and faiths. I found rigid doctrines, archaic practices or rituals no longer bound me and this process has become part of my lifelong journey. It became obvious to me that had I not gone to college and particularly Morling College I would have risked the possibility of becoming irrelevant to that part of the community that I most identified with (the last and destitute).

During my second year at college, two important things happened in my life. Firstly, I became involved in a course called Urban Mission, which was to take me back to my roots. As part of the course, there was a requirement to get involved in some sort of inner city mission work. The result being that I became involved with a 12-step group called the Freedom group which met one weeknight each week as St John's Darlinghurst. Here I met a group of people from the inner city who are either homeless or part of the local community.

This group was working their way through a book called "The 12 Steps A Spiritual Journey" which was aimed at helping people with both emotional and mental health problems. As I sat and we started to share within the group I realised that my childhood experiences having grown up as the son of a publican had uniquely prepared me to identify with those involved in the group. Many of the stories that were shared had a lot in common with my own journey through childhood and adolescence. I had apparently gone full circle ending up where I began.

I had come from a working-class background where I shared the daily toils and trials of those around me. My childhood consisted of growing up around council workers, shearers, farmhands and labourers. I was witness to many of their insecurities and foibles as they sought to find some sort of solace in alcohol. It was not uncommon for me as a child to witness an entire family fuelled by alcohol after a long week's work in conflict with each other. These conflicts became in some cases violent with brother against brother, father against son, husband against wife, uncles and auntie's against nephews.

As I look back, I am proud of my parents who during their years of owning and working a hotel successfully avoided falling in a trap that has ruined many. Of course the trap was, starting to drink socially with customers to become popular. Once again, in hindsight with many years of prospective I can see the wisdom in their decision.

Over the next three years in college this calling to work with the outcast, destitute and oppressed was to crystallise as the basis for my future ministry.

The second event that had impact for me was being asked to work as an observer at a church in Clemton Park in Sydney's south-west. I had avoided becoming involved with a particular church during my first year at college so that I could focus on dealing with the issues that were personal to me.

Clemton Park was a middle-class church with an ageing congregation. Their pastor approached me about becoming an observer in the church and it was to become my pleasure to work with both him and the congregation. I found that within the church there was a deep need for pastoral care especially amongst the older members.

My first year with Clemton Park church was to be very rewarding as a roster was set up amongst the different members for Alison and me to share Sunday lunch each week. It became evident that over many pastorates pastoral care had been not high on the agenda. This does not mean of course that the previous pastor's neglected the congregation as such but rather they were forced to make the difficult decision that many pastors face of, where do I put my time and resources. This is a common problem for many pastors who are on call 24 hours a day seven days a week. In an effort to become effective as a pastor there needs to be a rethinking of the pastoral role. I realised that in this case their pastors had chosen to spend their time with the sick and hospitalised. This combined with their weekly preaching duties meant that they were unable to spend time with the average congregation member many of whom it turned out where in great need.

Between my involvement with the Freedom group at St John's Darlinghurst and Clemton Park, my free hours were suddenly consumed. By the end of my second year, I had settled into a routine of study, ministry and mission.

As college gets under way I found myself being challenged on many fronts as I was forced to face my own inadequacies. The experience that I underwent during the previous six weeks I found to be having a great influence on my ability to cope with all the changes that I was now facing. I can remember that during the first two or three weeks the anxiety was to raise its ugly head time and time again. I felt isolated and alone despite being amidst many people and that the feeling that I had made a mistake in coming to college continued to haunt me.

During our initial orientation I was challenged both spiritually and mentally by what I was to hear and experience. I was faced by people with all sorts of different ideas and beliefs on how the Bible should be interpreted. It was this that caused for me a crisis of faith and was to be the start of a spiritual journey that was to continue throughout the rest my life.

My first year at college was to teach me the value of silence when it comes to voicing one's opinions on matters of theology. I came to realise that it was possible for others to hold differing opinions when it comes to how we interpret certain passages of Scripture. It is a learning process especially in the areas of faith, it became for me one of great inner challenge as I sought the guidance of the Holy Spirit to try and untangle the web of facts that I was continually confronted with. By the end of the first year one quarter of those who had started studying had decided to leave either due to circumstances beyond their control or because they became disillusioned by the critical study of Scripture.

Personally my conviction that I had taken the right steps in following the burden put on my heart to attend college was continually reaffirmed. Gradually the doubts began to dissipate as I realised how much I was being assisted on this journey by the Holy Spirit. I remember one point in particular when I was approached by the principal of the college and asked whether I was comfortable studying at a degree level with my background (it had been 22 years since I attended school). His question was not prompted by anything other than care and concern and I was to find out as time went on that many students in my predicament were forced to withdraw from the degree programme and study at the diploma level due to an inability to retain knowledge at that level.

I informed the principal of the college that I felt that studying at degree level was right for me and that if I started to fail subjects I would happily drop down and study at diploma level.

I was to find a great disparity between my experience with life and the ideas and concepts taught as fact, especially in the realm of personal relationships. I can remember one lecturer telling me to keep my heart in my pocket and another lecturer telling me that I needed to express myself at a personal level. This duality of purpose became one of the main cornerstones of my time at college as I continually struggled with concepts that were outside my sphere of experience.

I was to struggle also with an inbuilt sense of work ethic and found it difficult if not impossible to study at home. The concept of going to work each day and returning home only at night when the work was done was so deeply engraved on my psyche that the only way I was able to master this situation was to reserve a desk in the library and study there. Personally I needed the experience of leaving home and going to the library to study, then returning home only at meal times or at night when I had finally finished the day's work. It was this regime of going to and coming from the library that finally enabled me to settle down into a study pattern.

Likewise at exam time I found it necessary to curtail all other activities except for study. As exams approached each semester I would withdraw to the library for the study week before the exams and remain there except for sleep until the last exam had finished.

When it came to assignments at times I found myself overwhelmed with the amount of material that needed to be covered (studied) to be able to put on paper a cognitive and clear answer. It became imperative for me to start working on assignments as soon as I knew their due date. From the moment I knew when an assignment what due I would prioritise them into an order that was for me achievable. I found it important for my own well-being and to reduce anxiety to have essays and assignments finished long before the due date. I would then let them sit for several weeks only to reread and finalise them several days before handing them in.

In my first year the anxiety that I had experienced gradually dispelled, especially as I became more confident in my ability to cope with my changing world. I had not realised how great a challenge this would be in my preparation leading up to and beginning college. It was only as I became more comfortable and sort out new ways and means of coping that my confidence grew. I will be ever thankful to one man in particular for his assistance during those early months of college when the events of the previous Christmas threatened to destroy all that my wife and I have set out to achieve.

He was a man of deep personal knowledge and conviction and was to act as a counsellor/mentor for me over the next four years. Bill Anderson was an experienced Christian counsellor having had a long career in education, lecturing both at the Baptist College and the Anglican theological college for many years. It was with his help that I was able to unravel the jumbled thoughts and feelings that were at the base of my anxiety. He enable me to put things into a proper prospective and to approach each one on a level which made it possible for me to finally deal with my own foibles and insecurities.

By the end of my first year I was able to pass all my exams and assignments which was for me was a great achievement personally.

However as we approached the outskirts of Sydney I had a terrible sense of foreboding come over me. It was hard to place my finger upon the cause and the closer that we got to our destination the more foreboding the feelings became. I started to feel anxiety swelling up within me and could not understand the reason why. After we arrived at our destination at Colaroy Plateau in Sydney's eastern suburbs on the North Shore this sense of foreboding and anxiety seemed to dissipate. It was late afternoon when we arrived and as we busied ourselves unloading our needed possessions for the night and I felt that the experience had passed.

During that night at around about 2.30 to 3:00 AM I was awoken in a cold sweat feeling anxious and not knowing whether I need to laugh, sing, or cry. Once again these terrible feeling of foreboding began to escalate and I was unable to control my emotions and a great fear started to enter my mind. I asked myself what was going on, what's wrong with me yet I did not have an answer. I have only experienced such a thing once before in my life when I was about 21 and it had taken 12 months to pass away. That particular time I seemed to be filled with a deep anxiety and a concern about cancer as my grandfather had passed away suffering from a horrible death a few years previous. (I will go into this at greater depths in a later chapter)

As I lay on the bed that night I began to question myself and my ability to cope. I struggled with this anxiety for several hours and was unable to get control over it. Finally around 5:30 AM I rose and decided to take a walk around the suburb of Colaroy Plateau. As I walked along the semi-lite streets I started to ponder what may have gone wrong and I was reminded of how just weeks ago I had almost lost three of my children. This deep concern seemed to be what was at the root of the anxiety that I was now experiencing as I had never before faced a situation like this.

After walking for about two and half hours I returned to the dwelling where we were spending the night feeling much happier yet still filled with anxiety. I started to question whether or not I had made the right decision to leave Tamworth and study in Sydney. I was filled with self doubt and lacked understanding of the reasons behind the intensity of these feelings that I felt. I suggested to Alison that maybe we needed to return to Tamworth and see a doctor and try and find the source of what is happening. With her encouragement I agreed to continue on the path that we had chosen and to take on the battle to overcome the anxiety and emotions that I was feeling.

Fortunately we had only three days staying in temporary accommodation with a relative of Alison's. During those first few days I found that during the daylight hours I was able to cope quite well with the anxiety that was swelling up inside me however at night in those lonely hours of the morning I would wake and the feelings would start all over again. The terrible feelings of anxiety and foreboding with which I began to suffer became a nightly battle and one that eventually would make me seek out counselling.

We had arranged with some friends of ours, Michael and Cathy Choice to be able to initially moving to their one-bedroom unit at the college as they would not need it for several weeks. It was small but we decided that we would be best to wait here while our unit was still under construction at the college and we were finally given the go-ahead to move in. Each day I would go to the construction site and help the carpenters and builders tidy up and finish the job of building our unit. At that time the college had undertaken a building programme of erecting eight units or townhouses.

As I spend my days assisting the carpenters I found that the anxiety was shifted into the background and those feelings of foreboding gradually started to dissipate. It would be at night during the early hours that I would wake and battle my Demons. After several weeks our furniture was due to arrive from Tamworth and we asked the builders how long it would be before we were able to move in. Unfortunately the day of our furniture's arrival did not correspond with the day that the unit would become available. This only added to the anxiety that I was already feeling as we had to find a place at the college to store all our possessions and furniture. In consultation with Dr Vic Eldridge the principal of the college were able to store our furniture in the college dining room as it was not yet beeing used for feeding the other live on single student's.

After about to a 10 days of waiting we were finally able to move in to our unit. I was fortunate that I had my father's trailer with us and we were able to ferry our furniture and belongings from the college dining room to our unit piece by piece. With the help of other students that I had met on arrival we were able to carry out the move into the unit in only a few hours. I can remember quite clearly the first night that we spent in our unit lying awake during the night hearing nothing but sirens of police cars and ambulances. Sydney seemed to be such a busy place especially after having spent the last 11 years living outside of town with our nearest neighbour more than 500 yards away.

In an effort to overcome the feelings of anxiety that swelled up within me both Alison and myself set about setting up our unit and making it our home. The unit had three bedrooms, a small study and bathroom upstairs with a split-level dining and lounge area with kitchen downstairs. We chose to take the second bedroom so that our two boys could share the larger of the bedrooms while our daughter Jessica was given the smallest bedroom. We were grateful to have a roof over our heads and be able to unpack our possessions and lay out our belongings in such a way that the surroundings seemed familiar and welcoming to us.

I was fortunate during those first few days and weeks at the college to make several friends amongst the other married students and their families, friendships that were to last for many years. It seemed that we were in the right place at the right time because many of the families already living at the college were about to move from their present accommodation into other units at the college. There was to be a general move around amongst the married students each Christmas as those finishing vacated larger units and families that had been waiting in smaller accommodation were able to take up occupancy in those larger units. It was fortunate that I had our trailer with us as it could carry a large load of furniture and belongings.

It would be the support of these new friends that would enable me to deal with and cope with the feelings of anxiety that would pester me for the next six months.

It was during one of our many visits to Sawtell Beach that two of my children were almost drowned. We had not long arrived at the beach when my two youngest children Clint and Jessica ran off into the surf. As always they knew to only surf between the flags but on this day there was a severe rip running out to sea right in the middle of the flagged off area. I can still remember looking out towards the ocean and seeing both Clint and Jessica desperately trying to stay afloat as they were dragged out to sea by the rip. I immediately took off and raced into the surf, swam into the rip and followed them out to sea. After a minute or so of swimming I was able to catch up with them and encourage them to hang and not panic on as help would be coming.

By the time that the lifeguards had noticed that we were in trouble we would have been at least 200 yards from the shore. One of the lifeguards sprang to attention grabbed his board and paddled out to where we were. On reaching us I was able to help the children onto his board and see them off as the lifeguard paddled back to shore. It was a close call and I was immediately mindful of the story I had seen on television just prior to going on holiday. There had been a young father in Sydney who had swum out to rescue his children only to drown. Fortunately his children were saved but unfortunately he lost his life.

I imagined the headlines in the next day's paper as reading "farther enters surf to rescue children and drowns". The significance of what had happened made me draw upon my knowledge of the surf from when I was a young men in the surf club at Windang on the New South Wales southcoast. We were taught never to try and swim against a rip but rather swim across it to quiet waters. Even if this meant being taken out further from the shore it was possible to be able to swim to a quiet area of surf and then start back towards the shore. It was this knowledge that stopped me from panicking because at the time I was terribly unfit as far as swimming goes because over the preceding 15 years I would have only entered the surf a handful of times.

As I tread water wondering what I should do I noticed some board riders surfing off further down the beach. I decided to swim towards them and after a short while one of the board riders heard my call. With his assistance I was able to reach the shore and safety. By the time I reached the shore I was pretty well puffed out and out of breath, my muscles ached and my breathing was rapid. I looked up the beach to see my two children in the company of their mother and the lifeguard that save them. On approaching the senior lifeguard he said to me that he was sorry that this had happened and that he had told the junior lifeguards to move the flags further along the beach away from the rip and that somehow I had forgotten to do so.

My only concern at this time was for my children and their safety and I quietly gave thanks to our Lord for their lives and my own. The only time before this that one of my children's lives had been threatened was when my daughter Jessica was about 3 1/2 or four years of age. She had been a very precocious child and loved to run around in bare feet. On one particular day she ran to the front of our property where I had my horse in one of the yards and entered into the yard with the horse. My wife was hanging out the washing when she noticed Jessica missing. Just a moment before she had seen her in the laundry but fortunately upon noticing she was nowhere to be seen she turned and looked towards the front of our property.There in the horse yard lay our daughter unconscious. Alison immediately grabbed her and drove off to Tamworth Hospital where Jessica was found still to be unconscious with the imprint of the horses hoof on her face. Fortunately she survived this encounter with a minimal amount of damage to a person.

As I contemplated the possible loss of both Clinton and Jessica at Sawtell on this day I was reminded of how fragile life is. I became very conscious of the fact that I could have lost them both and it impacted me emotionally as never before.

The next day my three children went off to attend a beach mission run by Scripture Union in the caravan parkwhile Alison and I remained at our tent. Each year they had attended the sessions and had enjoyed the company of other children in the caravan park. However this particular night one of the boys started to pick on my eldest son because he wore glasses and in frustration my oldest son lashed out and punched him. Alison myself were sitting quietly in our tent when Jessica and Clint came running and screaming Ben is in trouble. Both Alison myself immediately took flight and headed off towards the Scripture Union camp. Here we found a young man fighting with my son and he had him on the ground kicking him in the face and on the body. It turned out that this young man was the elder brother of the boy who had been teasing Ben because of his classes and he had decided to exactsome vengeance.

Upon coming on the scene I was immediately taken back to the previous day when I almost lost Clint and Jessica. My first reaction was not my usual reaction which would have been to grab a young man and push him out of the road. However on this particular day only desire was to take my family out of harm's way. I stood there shouting at him to stop what he was doing when he turned and decided to try and take me on as well. I found myself fighting the urge to take my own vengeance with what happened but a small voice inside me stopped me from doing so. I was able to finally pacify the young man and extract my children from the area back to our tent. The events of the past two days had built up within me and I feared for the loss of my children. After this I found myself in deep conflict with my emotions asI had always taken my children's safety for granted. As a result we decided to pack up our camp and return to Tamworth to seek medical attention for my eldest son. We spent that evening driving back from Coffs Harbour to Tamworthand the next day we took my eldest son Ben to the doctors for a check up.There were marks from the young man's shoe that were plainly visible on the side of his face and on his chest.

The doctor informed us that he was lucky that they had not broken any bones in his face despite the bruising and inflammation. Upon returning home from the doctors I had thoughts of calling the police and having charges laid but I decided to leave well enough alone. I knew that it had only being the Lords intervention in this matter and also in the events at the beach that had saved my children's lives. This whole situation caused me to ponder my responsibilities as a father, carer and protector of my children. I had never before felt the weight of parenthood so greatly as I always been the one to go to work and provide the financial needs of the family leaving the day to day affairs of the house and family to my wife. Despite my relationship with the Lord I was challenged by this whole affair and sought to understand what meaning lay beneath it.

At this time Alison myself were packing up our house and making ready to move to Sydney to study at the Baptist Theological Collegeat Eastwood. We were due to start studying in February so we spent the rest of our holidays packing our possessions and moving out of our home. It would not be until the day that we finally travelled to Sydney to start a new life that the events of this Christmas would come back to haunt me.

The pastor David Splitt impressed me greatly with his openness and caring nature. He seemed like a man who had lived and experienced the Lord’s presence every moment. I was in time to come to know David as a personal friend and Mentor,someone who has had a great influence on my Christian journey. In those early days I found wholeness and a completeness of the kind missing from my life fora long time. I was eventually to find peace with myself and the world around me, “a peace that passes all understanding”.

Over the next few months Alison and I became regular attendee’s to the Baptist services each Sunday night. Both of us grew in our relationship with our Lord and we both were able to experience a joy in our hearts, a joy that only comes when one is truly happy.Those heady months of the first year soon passed and we found together what it is to be loved by Jesus. As time progressed both Alison and myself began to understand the true meaning of a Christian walk and the need for baptism. Some might say re-baptism as I had been baptised as child into the Church of England.

This however was my decision nota decision made by others for me but a decision made by myself in my own time with my own understanding and knowledge. It was a very personal decision to be baptised as a believer and go through the waters of baptism. I wanted to profess my undying faith in our Lord Jesus Christ as the son of God and the saviour of man, woman and child. Through the waters of baptism as a believer I began a journey that continues to this present day and will continue for the rest of my life. A journey that I was fortunate enough to have my wife Alison joined me on as we were both baptised as believers on the same day having come to the decision separately and unknowingly together.

It was this decision to undergo the waters of baptism and feel the cleansing power of the holy spirit that broke down the barriers that would eventually enable me to forgive myself for all of my past anger. An anger that had at times consumed me and had caused me great sorrow within. The journey to self forgiveness was to take about six years and it wasn’t until I was forced to face the imminent possibility of the death of all three of my children that I came to understand that I needed to forgive myself. Not the easiest thing to do.

So on with the journey, the time between 1988 and 1993 was filled with great joy for the whole family as we came to belong amongst a community of believers. It was this belonging to, that had a profound effect on me personally, because to belong I believe is one of the things that all human beings seek. Certainly on my behalf the concept of belonging to something greater than myself, something with eternal dimensions not just work but faith had a great impact. In those early years under the teaching and guidance of David Splitt I became re-aware of the longings and feelings that I have had as a teenager to follow our Lord as far as he could take me.

I became involved in a program called Evangelism Explosion which enabled me to learn how to share my faith with others. We would go from home to home and share our experiences and our faith with others and see the joy and excitement that this sharing of personal experience and knowledge gave to them. I became more convinced as time went by that the Lord was leading me to full-time ministry just as I had felt as a teenager however this time there was no denying the fact of how real it was.

I can remember the first time that I mention to Alison that I felt the Lord was calling me into the ministry.She was shocked and taken back yet she also understood the impact of the change that had been wrought on my life. The longing to serve was undeniable and as time went on Alison gradually began to understand herself that our future lay in ministry. It was to take until 1992 before Alison finally agreed to follow me into ministry and so we started to seek out how we could serve in a full-time capacity.

Under the guidance of my Mentor Alison and I both travelled to a meeting in Sydney at Baptist House. It was a meeting that was to change our lives for ever, it was the turning point in understanding that if I was to serve our Lord I would first need to go and study his word in a more serious way. We met a most wonderful man who was in charge of ministry placements for the Baptist union of New South Wales and he encouraged us both that the best way to move forward would be to go to college and study full-time. Only then would we be fully prepared and enabled to carry out ministry to others.

At the age of 39 and 40 respectively and with three children Alison and myself moved away from our home in Tamworth to the Baptist College at Eastwood in Sydney. It would be this relocation that would prompt within me a deep mental and physical challenge or crisis. It wouldbe during the Christmas holidays of 1993 after having sold our business in Tamworth and having made ready for our move to Sydney that I was to experience the near death of my three children. It was to be a traumatic influence of me personally over the first year and a half of my time in Sydney causing me anxiety at levels that I had never experienced before.

During the Christmas holidays we travelled to Sawtell on the New South Wales north coast and set up camp in a caravan park for a well earned break. As usual we pitched our tent and set up camp as we usually did. We had always had a great time whenever we visited Sawtell in the past and each Christmas a Christian group would hold a children’s Mission with activities for those staying in the park. Our children would always enjoy themselves each time they attended and had the opportunity to meet others of the same age and listen to the teaching given by those involved.

This Christmas however was to be different, unlike the past I was to face the possible loss of all three of my children.

Since I was a young man I always believed in the existence of God and had grownup with some attachment to the Church of England. I was baptised a child and confirmed as a teenager and believed that our Lord Jesus Christ was in fact the son of God. However I realise in my present situation that that belief was only head knowledge and held nothing meaningful for me. I can remember as a young man growing up that I was drawn to the church and felt that my future lay in our Lord’s service. It was this realisation that I only had head knowledge of our Lord and even though I believed in the existence of God and the son of God it held no personal meaning for me.

As a result during my late teens and early 20s I drifted away from the church and from our Lord. Even though I had attended Christian Fellowship meetings at Port Kembla during my teenage years during which I had the fortunate opportunity to meet my future wife. Alison was attending a different Fellowship held at Shellharbour and we would visit them occasionally as a group. Despite all of this I still had no personal commitment to a relationship with our Lord.In other words there was no ownership, I had nothing invested in their relationship and I asked little yet in reflection received much.

I was married at the age of 19 which was very young for those days yet I had met my soul mate and wished nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with the woman who I loved. My wife Alison was only 18 and a couple of weeks when we got married yet here I am some 39 years later and am very much still in love with the same woman. We have had a wonderful life together experiencing both the happiness and joy of raising three children. I mentioned that I came from the Church of England background, well Alison came from a Catholic background and we met and fell in love for life.

This becomes important as during the years that I worked long hours to provide a home and lifestyle for my family Alison had remained at home and raised three children. She to have an underlying belief and desire to know more about our Lord and to understand her place in his creation. We had been able to give our children everything that we had wished to give them and had held nothing back fulfilling for them all those things that we ourselves had not been able to experience or enjoy as children. I think every parent tries to give their children the things that they feel that they missed out on as a child.

It was some time during 1986 that Alison had started to go back to church because she felt that she needed the help of God to experience a completeness and to fill a void within a heart. She would take the children along with herto an Anglican church in Tamworth. However with three children tagging behind her she found it difficult if not impossible to be able to sit through any service without being interrupted and made to withdraw because of crying children. (This I believe is more common amongst young women with children than we like to believe.) As a result of my experience of being healed by our Lord I too began to accompany her to the services. Unfortunately at this stage the only time I had available was of a Sunday night, so we would attend the evening service at the Anglican Church in Tamworth. These services were quite often brief, lasting less than half an hour and failed to fulfil the basic need for teaching and learning how to have a relationship with our Lord. This is not a criticism of the church per se but rather and admission on my behalf that I particularly needed more of an understanding not only of God but of myself.

I had reached a point in my life where there was a deep desire to know and understand all about our Lord and how I could serve him. Not as payment for healing me but rather to fill the basic emptiness that I experienced in my heart. What many call the God Hole, that part of ourselves that knows there is more to life than just existing. It is that emptiness within me that was driving me forward on a path which I now believe was guided by the very hand of God himself.

I should mention that during the preceding 15+ years I had become a very angry person. I was not angry at anybody in particular but would find myself gradually being wound up like a spring only to explode at some time and place that was not usually of my choosing. Usually it would be due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control. I had for many years hated myself for this particular quirk in my personality, feeling that I deserved no less than to be punished in the extreme. I had often sought help from GPs as to why I will gradually wind up and explode however it wasn’t till around this period of 1987-88 that I finally met a doctor who could explain to me the processes going on behind the scenes in my body and mind.

I had since the age of 13 been taking antihistamines for a sinus condition that was exacerbated by the partial obstruction of the drainage canal of I right sinus cavity. This resulted in constant allergy induced fevers or sinus attacks which were very prominent in my life as a young man. I can remember that when I played football on Saturdays that there were many occasions on which I had to have a antibiotic injection the afternoon before to help reduce a fever. In fact I still suffer from this condition today like many other people find myself with the whole gambit of sneezes, runny noses and bleary eyes.

As I said I was fortunate to meet a doctor who could explain to me how these antihistamines had affected my body and mind. It was this knowledge and the understanding that came with it and how components of these drugs were used to treat illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder that finally set me free. I realised it was these medications underlying the outbursts and that they were something that was beyond my control (no excuses). I was however given the strength to overcome them as time went on. I reduced the amount of antihistamines that I took until finally after several years I was able to control it. I held myself in contempt and could not initially forgive myself because the memory of these outbursts plagued my conscience. It wasn’t until the time of my healing that I realised that our Lord had placed before me not only the opportunity to experience physical healing but also to experience an emotional well-being which I had not had before or at least not for a longtime.

I could write a whole book (and I may) about anger because I consider myself an expert on the topic. Not so much as somebody who has all the answers but rather as somebody who had fought with had finally conquered anger in and of itself.

I will digress and returned to the story at the point where Alison and I were travelling into town on Sunday night to attend the evening service at the Anglican Church. You might gather that we lived out of town and we did. We were fortunate enough to find and purchase a lovely house about 6 km from Tamworth on the northern side. It has been the old church block and the previous two owners had dismantled the old church and build a home where it used to stand.

It was on one of these many Sunday night trips into town that we realised as we went past the Baptist church in Carthage Street that they were there worshipping not only as we went through but also on our way back home. Our two boys had become involved with the boys Brigade held at the Baptist church one night each week. Alison had met some of the people as she would drop off the boys and then wait to pick them up afterwards and she commented to me about how friendly they were.

It was this experience of Alison knowing some people there and the fact that both of us felt we needed more spiritual input into our lives that made us finally agree to attend an evening service at the Baptist church.

The time is 1989 and I have moved on from running a workshop for JT and HM Savage Proprietary Ltd and are now working with my father operating Tamworth Alignment Centre. Business is good, we have taken over from the previous owners and are gradually getting the hang of doing car, truck and bus wheel alignment’s. It has not been easy but we have survived and I have found myself under a lot less pressure and stress. This is the first time in 10 years that I have been able to sit back and think with some clarity.

The preceding years had not been kind to me both emotionally and physically and I found myself looking for answers. The staph infection that I contracted was still running riot throughout my body. I knew that I needed to do something about my situation as I knew that I could not continue indefinitely with the way that things were happening.

It was at this time that I was approached by my mother a Christian woman who had a deep faith and relationship with our Lord. She encouraged me to attend a healing service that was conducted by The Order of St Luke. At first I felt embarrassed about going up in front of other people and asking for God’s healing. After about six months of doubt and with the gentle encouragement of my mother I finally decided to attend a healing service that was to take place at the Uniting Church in Tamworth. I can still remember the night as it is locked firmly in my mind as a turning point in my life.

I can remember sitting at the back of the congregation thinking to myself “if they ask me to come forward I will not go”, however I found myself when the time came unable to control my body and found myself standing at the front with a line of people who were asking for God’s healing. As the pastor came closer I can remember thinking what do I ask for, what is it that I really need, what is the question that I need an answer to. It was as if somebody else was in control of my body and I can remember asking for forgiveness and for a relationship with God. As the pastor placed his hand on my head I felt a washing sensation that started at the top of my body and gradually worked it’s way all the way down and out through my toes. I knew then what had happened but it was to take me quite some time before I would be able to talk about it.

The boils and infection that had invaded my body gradually began to heal and in the next several weeks cleared away and vanished. So much so that within three weeks I was completely clear of any infection. Normally once an infection started it would take 4 to 5 weeks for a boil to come to a head, break and then finally heal however now I had no sign of any new infections and all the old ones had gone.

I was in awe of what had happened and I found it hard to talk about because the experience was so great and so personal that I needed time to think and ask myself the question what had really happened. God had healed me and I found that hard to comprehend. Why had he done this, what was the reason that he chose to heal me, I was no one special? There was a gradual dawning of awareness that followed this experience, an understanding that the creator himself had seen fit to take away not only my illness but the barrier that I had placed between him and myself because of my own stubborn nature and unwillingness to surrender my will to anyone.

I can remember asking myself where do I go from here, what are the next steps on this journey?