I come from a religious family so I have always believed in God. I didn’t believe in their religion, nor any religion. I was always of the opinion that any religion has too many ‘man-made interpretations’. I believed in some sort of ‘unified religion’, or that all one needed was a relationship with God- which I still believe is the biggest part. But…things kept happening when I started going to church…and I couldn’t deny them.
I first has an urge to enter a church in 2019/20 after an abusive relationship with someone much older. After one of the first few times I went, my mum, who comes from an Islamic background, told me she had a dream about me being surrounded and protected by angels. This week, I was on a bus journey home and heard a song whos lyrics I googled- a non-religious song. The google search had the first two links about angels…which had absolutely nothing to do with the lyrics in this song. From this point on, I believed maybe God ‘spoke’ to me when I was surrounded by other believers, I felt like I needed to be at a church for more of these ‘signs’, but I wasn’t a Christian, and didn’t think I’d ever be.
I dipped in and out of church between 2020-2023, and while I do feel I gradually drew closer to God during this period, there was still a lot missing from the life I know now.
In 2023 summer, my PhD funding was about to run out, and after health struggles it wasn’t in the position. I randomly came across a funding option my parents thought would be unlikely but applied anyway. I made a pact with God that if I got it I would go to church every week- I got the funding. I did not stick to the pact, although it never left my heart.
I’ve always ran as a hobby. In 2023 Aug I started taking it seriously. By Aug 24-May 25 I was in sub 17 5k shape, 2:40 marathon shape all things I thought I could never achieve. I ran for fun. I always thanked God for my progress, but my heart wasn’t what it is now after what I have experienced from April 25-March 26…Ezekiel 36:26…
I have had a thyroid condition since a teen. It was crazy bad as a teen , TSH 100 or so, but I have been on medication since 2012 and thought nothing of it. In Sept 24 I had a blood test which showed my medication needed an increase. Again, I thought nothing of it.
April 25- I have crazy palpitations during an interval session. I had been feeling strange the week leading up to that. (In fact in Feb I felt very unwell, panic attacks came shortly after and I thought something was off, but the heart symptoms were not present…from around this time I started praying more… watching Christian things on youtube). I thought I was listening to roadworks in the background. But it was my heart. Thankfully it settled and I went back to bed…but I had skipped beats for the rest of the day occasionally. The next day I was to travel for races and back to my uni city, so I convinced myself I was fine… that morning, I don’t usually take pictures of nature, but this leaf stood out to me, while I was taking this picture, a song played I had never heard before ‘Stubborn kinda heart- quireboys’..(Ezekiel 36:26 connection again…).
Also, during this period in parkrun I turned up to pace a parkrun. I felt really, really unwell. I put on worship music (which I had only just started doing), and I heard for the first time No Longer Slaves- ‘I’m no longer a slave to fear, I am a child of God’. This remains one of my favourite songs, and it got through that day.
I went to the Uni city. I ran for around a month. I kept getting skipped beats. Eventually I had to stop. I was easily in the shape of my life. I had just won a regional race, a local mile race, ran a park run which indicated sub 17 shape, and set a park run course record elsewhere..but the palpitations were far too scary.
It turned out that my thyroid was suppressed and I kept getting alot of very scary palpitations. I asked for heart tests, but had to wait for months for these. I had chest pain for 2-3 months on-end. I had constant ringing in my ears. I became too weak that walking ten minutes felt very dodgy. I delivered PoTs. I had a two-week period where I felt like I needed to go to A+E every night to get checked. I could be sat doing nothing, feel my heart beating against my bra, thudding etc. Words can’t describe how bad it was. I thought I would never make it out of the period. Despite dose reductions it wasn’t enough. So I suffered until September with these symptoms- other symptoms come next as thryoid swings under BUT
June 25- I couldn’t get the image of the leaf out of my head. It represented being stripped off everything but the decay has revealed something unexpectedly beautiful. The network of veins of the leaf also resemble that of the vessels of a heart.
That week, I was staring out of my window, now in North Wales with family, for what was only supposed to be a few months while I recovered. The view and the scenery were beautiful and, I should add I have never interpreted images before any of this, but some things just really stood out to me…two magpies were there. One was carrying a loose feather and trying to drop it off to the other magpie. But the other magpie kept ignoring it and moving on. To me this represented a part in a faith journey where part of the self has begun to emerge through the journey of faith but is not yet fully recognised or accepted.
In June 25 (THIS IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST PARTS OF my testimony, but it does not come to FRUITION until SEPT 25), I was lying in bed extremely scared. Falling alseep. I had a really vivid image of a wasp/moth turning into a butterfly with angelic wings– I will upload the screenshot with the date as evidence as I ask gpt to interpret this for me..lol ..
I should add, pretty cool also but my parents had moved to NW only a year prior and they happened to move right next door to an church, which unfortunately isn’t in use.
I had been to a church in the village before and was keen to go. But I was so unwell I only made it every 3 weeks. On the Tuesday prior to the week I went (and this never happened again), I was woken up at 7:30am by a magpie pecking on my window. On the Sunday, the sermon was exactly about someone the pastor knew who had been stripped off everything and eventually came to God, tying in with the theme that seemed to be emerging in my life. Basically, there was an alcoholic who used to come to church and sit at the back. He had some major health problems, he lost his job, he lost his wife. He asked to stay with the pastor for a bit who let him. One day he asked the pastor ‘Why is all of this happening to me’. The pastor replied, ‘you are being stripped off everything, as it’s the only way you’ll see God’. The guy didn’t like any of this, and stormed off. He didn’t see him for months. But then one day he randomly asked the pastor to dinner, the pastor didn’t understand what was going on.. in the end he thanked the pastor for everything that was happening in his life. Then at the end, Jeremiah 29:11 appears on the screens.
I go back home, I tell my family his who are sat in the back-garden, and what the preach was about today. As we are about to set-off for a walk (which I never felt well enough to do but wanted some form of normality), my mum spotted a feather near the front-door..it was a magpies.Â
(TBC…)
