Ann's Testimony

‘♫… You Put Your Left Leg In …  ♫’

This is the first line of a popular dance song from the 1950s called ‘The Hokey Kokey’. And it continues; … ‘In; out; in; out; you shake it all about …’

 Well, that’s pretty much how I would have described my Christian life: ‘In and Out’!

  I’ll try to condense my story, but I really could write a whole book about all the things I’ve been through since my first encounter with God all those years ago.

            I was just twelve when I first decided to follow The Lord Jesus at one of those ‘Sunshine Corner’ meetings. When I was fifteen, I started dating a lovely lad who played the euphonium in the local Salvation Army band. We continued to attend our separate places of worship but this didn’t work out too well, and after about a year we both left our respective churches and started to go out socially to pubs drinking and were married by the time I was nineteen. My first son was born three years later and I began to feel the need for God in my life again. My husband said that it was fine by him if I went to church, but he didn’t want to involve himself again so I went alone. After my second son came along nineteen months later, I still managed to attend church, taking my toddler along with the baby in a carrycot.

Then, when the younger child was nineteen months old my husband left me for a sixteen year-old girl. I was completely devastated and dropped off going to church; My heart was broken and I cried every night for two years solid. Eventually I went back to the pubs to try and find some comfort, but that only satisfied for a little while, so I decided yet again, to go back to God and pray for a Christian husband. Alas, nobody at church thought much of a divorcee with two children in tow, so after a couple of years, back I went, into the pubs to drown my sorrows in a bottle of wine.

Much later, I met a man who was ten years older than myself - I was thirty and he was forty -. I really liked him; he was very good to me. It turned out that his circumstances were similar to mine so we courted, went out together and eventually were married. But the first few years together were really hard. Within six months of our wedding day his sister died of cancer, which left him depressed all the time. Also, - probably due to his depression - my kids began to get on his nerves. Time passed and we eventually had a new baby. I thought we would finally be happy, but unfortunately things just got worse and we split up twice during this period.

Then, when our son was seven years old, the final straw came! I found a lump on my breast! Wow, was I scared! I arranged several appointments at the hospital, but didn’t actually turn up until the fifth appointment. I had spent five months worrying myself silly; Then when I finally dared to face the doctor my worst fears were realised when he said: “I’m sorry Mrs Simpson, but you have cancer! That word literally bounced off the four walls of the doctor’s office! I was told that I would need a mastectomy and a lumpectomy in the other breast.

Boy! Did I need God now! More than ever I needed Him! But I felt sure that God wouldn’t want this ‘Hokey Kokey Christian’ back so I decided I would wait until my treatment was finished. Ten months of chemotherapy, twenty days of radiotherapy, it was absolutely the worst ever time of my life, I was constantly afraid of dying – all the time! I felt I looked like a freak, and with all the weight I had put on because of the steroids and other drugs. I really couldn’t take any more, I had lost a breast and gained four stones in weight, how could my husband love me?

I know that what I did next is really stupid, especially since I was already afraid of dying: But I tried to commit suicide! One night I took a full bottle of sleeping pills and prayed that I wouldn’t wake up! However I’m such a coward! After a short while, when I could feel the effect of the tablets in my body I started to panic so I woke up my husband and told him what I’d done. It was about three A.M. so he phoned for an ambulance.

I woke up the next morning in the hospital feeling groggy, stupid and very embarrassed. The doctor finally came round and pronounced that I was sane and that I could now go home. This was definitely the last straw! Now it was all or nothing! I got down on my knees and asked God to take me back, and this time I also asked Him to give me the staying power. When I was going for my chemotherapy, sometimes I had to wait for six or seven hours before I could go into the treatment room. During this time I would often go into the toilets and cry and cry to God asking Him to give me the strength to carry on: He always did!

Not too long after this, my husband became a Christian too and we were both baptised. I was baptised in December 2000 and my husband on his birthday in September 2001. When he had been baptised - on the same night in fact - he baptised our son Joshua.

We now attend a lovely church where enjoy great teaching, preaching and fellowship, and I have never felt so loved in all my life. So, twenty years after praying for a Christian husband I had finally got one!! We fell in love all over again! So much so that we decided to retake our wedding vows and on the first of December 2002 we were married anew. God has really blessed our new marriage and although I am still on sickness benefit and we are ‘as poor as church mice’, God still maintains our car for transport to the church and blesses us with two five-day holidays a year: But the most important thing is, that I have such a closer relationship with God than I ever had before.

  And so, after all is said and done, I can honestly say that if I had to get breast cancer, loose a breast, go through the trauma of my hair falling out, loose my eyebrows, eyelashes and several teeth; Then on top of that gain four stones in weight – all because of the chemotherapy, I would go through it all again to know The Lord as I do now, in a purer, richer and more fulfilling way than ever before. God is Love!

  …. You see, there is another line in that old song; and it’s this: “YOU PUT YOUR WHOLE SELF IN …” and that’s what I’ve finally done! I have put my whole self into God, and this time I’m here to stay, for good! And I take great care that no one robs me of my salvation.

  Foot Note

By this coming October, I will have been clear of cancer for five years! I don’t worry any more whether it will come back because I am persuaded that I won’t die, no, not one second before God allows it, …  and that’s fine by me! 

  God Bless

  Ann Simpson (August 2003)