I am walking with my mother in Bangor. She randomly says, that is a Christian cafe, do you want to go in? I’m like yeh… I walk in.. sit down ..and this is the image. This is September 2025, and my health is still very bad. I get palpitations bending up and down- skipped beats, not heart-thudding which is a little subjective- I am still very dodgy. But I see the image and have to try really, really hard not to cry. Then my mum gets up to the prayer board and writes down my name , followed by all of our family. Again, it’s really hard not to cry.
But there’s even more to it. Before we go into the cafe I am in a charity shop. I sometimes look thorugh books but was not in the mood but see a book titled ‘Encounters’ and am drawn to it. Turns out it is a Christian book – and this happens to be the first chapter:
(This is actually a bit of a re-occuring theme, in a charity shop in my parents home village I randomly select a book because it has ‘iron’ in the title and it turned out to be a Christian book. In November 2025, I walk in to a charity shop and this is right at the start..some old, authentic scriptures …)
Unfortunately, my health is still not good by the end of this year. I now end up with overt underactive thyroid, and feel awful- I still get the skipped beats and have palpitations in a different type of way. But November 2025 I am able to introduce a tiny bit of running, for the first time since the end of May 2025.
I am still very, very scared. I feel like it will never end. But, I keep this image in my head, if God gave me this image it couldn’t end this way. The Christian cafe turns out to also be a church and one lady I met said something that holds true in my case, her daughter suffered for 18 months with a bad arm, and one day was healed after prayer. Her words were that her daughter suffered for 18 months, but now that’s her testimony for life. If I was healed earlier, maybe my heart would have remained stubborn. Maybe I needed all of these experiences. Ezekiel 36:26.Â
In August, I had been praying about what I will do after my PhD- I struggle with chronic pain, muscle spasms, most likely fibromyalgia, and tbh, even when the thyroid is medicated don’t always feel 100%.When i worked 9-5 summer jobs it was extremely difficult for me due to the pain. By October I find some freelance consulting, and that is looking like my now f-t job post PhD- I did not even know such a job existed. This song was very prominent in my life at that time: ‘ Make Room-Â Your way is better, Jesus
Your way is better
Shake up the ground of all my tradition
Break down the walls of all my religion
Your way is better
Oh, Your way is better
Without my illness, I don’t think I would have discovered this job- I would have been around a field running somewhere instead!
One Sunday in December, a sunny Sunday, I had been to church, and had that sense of peace that often carries through the entire day. I had done an interval session without palpitations. Which was a huge step in the right direction at this point. While I’m doing this for the first time i hear the song ‘you turn my mourning into dancing’ . At 4pm I tuned into this online service I sometimes do. They were just closing up, with worship music. The pastor was closing in prayer. There was a magpie in the garden who kept lifting its wings and ducking down, as though about to take flight. But it never went off. Then the pastor very,very slowly was singing ‘you turn my graves into gardens, you turn my mourning into dancing- Brandon Lake’. The magpie takes flight right on ‘you turn my mourning into dancing’.
donkey and sword things here Dec 25 sermon
I was hoping to make it back to the Isle of Man for Christmas. But my thryoid levels were still miles off. I had an inclination God did not want me there at that point of time anyway as ABOVE FIND SCRESNHTOS
This was confirmed: one December the preach is by someone who does not normally preach, but is a main figure in the church. I had never heard them mention the Isle of Man before. I am only there for around 20 minutes- due to feeling unwell I would sometimes just try to attend at the peak of the sermon. He says something along the lines of God having different plans for us. Then he says I have always wanted to sail to the Isle of Man, but have never made it. Maybe God does not want me to make the Isle of Man. This is exactly what he said.
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