The Lightfoot Lane Blog

Hi there - just a quick update for everyone who I know has been following our story/praying for us. Thank you so much for your support, it means a lot - and there are too many of you for me to say thank you personally.

In my last post I mentioned that we were going to go to Christies to see about Linda going onto a new trial drug. Well, we went last Friday but unfortunately they confirmed that Linda’s cancer has progressed too far for her to go onto this. They spoke to our consultant and planned for her to start a new course of tablet-form chem, one that she hasn’t tried before.

So Linda went for a pre-chemo blood test Monday, but her bloods were too low and so Monday night they rang us and asked Linda to go in overnight for a platelet transfusion. Her bloods continued to deteriorate, and she ended up being in until tonight (Wednesday) having had to have another blood transfusion. She was however allowed home tonight, and has also started the new course of chemo. They are hoping that this will help to reduce her liver swelling, which is now getting significant as is her pain and discomfort which is causing her breathing to struggle.

It’s been a tough week over the last seven days, as we as a family face mum’s health failing quickly together. Talking to the kids about this and the realities of Linda’s illness is always tough, and more so as things gain pace. I have also asked Linda’s family to travel up from Kent to visit her this weekend - that will be VERY tough.

Having had long periods of stability, we have always found that when things happen, they happen fast. Linda and I would therefore really appreciate your continued prayers, as we are now at the place of having to decide whether to carry on with her treatment or not. For now we are watching and seeing what happens with the latest chemo, and then make our decisions as questions of quality of life are now more important than ever.

But in the midst of this the one thing I have found that, although it chokes me to watch my wife struggle and to talk to my kids, there is a tangible sense of peace as we draw strength from a strong sense of assurance. We talked about facing the tough decisions together as Christians knowing where she is going, and this has really given us strength to face what lies ahead of us. Paul writes in Philippians “To live is Christ, to die is gain” and I guess its only really when your back is against the wall that you can claim the right to quote verses like this and really understand them.

 It was a big day Monday in our house. Our youngest, Tim, started school and did so in his usual style! It was a great day for many reasons - not least because we now have all 4-kids at school, (hooray!!!) and (for 2-years anyway) in the same school! But it was also special because when we found out Linda was expecting Tim 5-years ago, Linda was diagnosed with cancer shortly afterwards, and so for her to see Tim start school was always going to be special.

September started with a bang! Whether it was the Furnace Ball, conducting my first wedding Saturday lunchtime or the fantastic evening we had with Bobby Ball Saturday night, it was great to see so many smiling, happy faces - faces transformed by God’s life changing presence. At the end of the day, that is what lifts my heart to see - God at work in people’s lives bringing them laughing into God’s family.

Mind you, God never promised us that the Christian life would be easy. Meeting recently with some of our more recent converts, once again I sat and listened to their stories of how life seemed to be kicking them in the teeth since deciding to follow Jesus. It reminded me of what I say to probably everyone who makes that decision - when we cross the line from the enemy’s camp to God’s camp, all hell breaks loose as “old ugly” seeks to neutralize the small shoots of faith and and pull people back to his camp and not follow Christ. If you stick your head over the parapet, you will get shot at, and sometimes we forget the intensity with which the enemy wars against God’s work.

Today Linda and I visited our consultant again, and had confirmed what we were expecting to hear. The last dose of chemo does not seem to have worked, and they believe that Linda is now progressing to the next stage of her illness. She has increasingly struggled over the last few weeks in just about every way (sickness, fatigue, pain etc) and so they are going to carry out another blood transfusion, another scan and transfer her care to Christies in Manchester. There they hope to start her on a new drug trial that is underway as well as put her on a different chemo. So we move on in our journey, our battle - not much of  a day though for our 15th wedding anniversary…!

When I was leading on Sunday, I finally plucked up the courage to choose to lead “Blessed Be Your Name.” I thought I could speak about it without getting choked (but I was wrong!)

“Blessed be your name, on the road marked with suffering, When there’s pain in the offering, blessed be your name.”

In 2 Samuel 24:24 David says that he doesn’t want to sacrifice something that costs him nothing. If Linda and I have to face “pain in the offering” then I want God to use what we are going through, and bring people whose lives are broken and hurting to know that in God, there is hope. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, (6:11-13) sometimes all we can do is stand, and knowing God’s strength and peace to be able to do that is a real privilege. I wonder whether we all feel that way? It’s OK you know to just stand when the waves crash around - it works for lighthouses……..

Thank you for your continued support, love and prayers!

So what do you think? I’m probably biased, but I think the 6th and latest issue of our magazine Heart is the best yet! A big thank you to my team who for the last 3 years have worked so hard to produce such a quality magazine.

For those of you who weren’t aware, we produce 5500 copies of Heart 2-3 times a year, and people who are part of our church distribute around 5000 copies to their neighbours. The latest issue has the theme “21st Century Church”, because at Fulwood Free Methodist Church we believe that Jesus Christ is as relevant to the 21st Century as ever, and we want to show our community that as a church, we too are part of the 21st Century!

But what I’d really like to know is what you think? Do you think Jesus Christ is relevant to today? Could he have something to say to you? Do you believe he ever existed? What do you think of church?

Boring? Irrelevant? Untrue? All these are questions people regularly ask of us, and of God. But as many people are discovering, Christianity is certainly not boring! In a messy, mucky world looking for meaning, it’s certainly relevant. And as for untrue, we believe that there is enough historical, physical and scientific evidence to say that faith in Jesus Christ is not a blind leap of faith, but a reasonable step of faith.

Please, post some comments to this here and tell me what you think! Ask me your questions! Or if you are local, why not come along to our next enquirers group, Christianity Explored, in a local pub/restaurant in the Autumn and explore for yourself!

I hope you enjoy reading our magazine. If you have missed any of the back issues, you can find out more and how to request a copy at Heart Magazine.

It’s been a month or so since I last blogged on Linda and myself, and since many of you are praying and supporting us I thought it was time I’d give you another update, as I promised I would!

We are doing OK at the moment, things in our house are “normal”, which for us is a good thing! Linda is on chemo 2 out of every 3 weeks, but has only one more cycle (starting today) to go before we have to agree/decide what to do next. There are a few options, one of which involves traveling once every 3 weeks to wherever in the country a particular new drug is being trialled, which they are thinking of putting Linda on. The other is starting a new type of chemo longer term.

The bottom line is Linda is very good at the moment – to use our consultant’s words having been very ill at the start of the year, her bloods have returned to “normal” (in a cancer sort of way!) We were told then that half her liver (the right lobe) no longer worked, and the left had started to fail Then this chemo began, as did a Sunday night prayer meeting after the evening service here at Fulwood. Now she is back “to normal” being mum, doing school runs etc. Her hair has even returned curly since this photo was taken! We had a good half term last week, getting out to the lakes for a short walk and picnic one day and a drive up to Stocks Reservoir and the edges of Yorkshire another.

So thank you for your prayers - God does hear - and please don’t stop! When she is not on treatment, her tumour grows rapidly and experience has been that we progress to the next stage. So we really need to know a clear sense of “what next” when we see our consultant on Thursday.

Continuing our series on Secure in…your faith, on 20th May I am speaking on Is “His” Story History? and in support of my message, please find below some links to the evidences I refer!

1. Biblical Archaeology,
2. Dinosaurs,
3. King Solomon-Gezer 1, King Solomon-Gezer 2,
4. Belshazzar,
5. Capernaum,
6. Evidence for Jesus Christ - Outside the Bible

In preparing this message, to quote from someone much more well known than myself, “I felt my heart strangely warmed!” I woke up in the middle of my night with the excitement of speaking on this, and found myself on my knees praising and worshipping God at 1:30 in the morning with tears streaming down my face in thanks to Him for truth!

Those of you who know me know I have some pet sayings - one of which is “we do not have a blind faith!” Our faith is based upon evidence that stands the test. And once we realise that our faith is not just something we believe because of feelings, or hope that we have “backed the right horse for eternity!” but instead is based upon historically verified evidence that IT REALLY HAPPENNED, God’s truth can finally travel from our heads to our hearts and transform our lives!

I am always worried that churches exercise control and don’t release people into true freedom in God. The worst thing this does is create an impression that as long as we do certain things and believe certain things - in the case of tithing, as long as we give enough - we are O.K.  This is not grace!

Take tithing. It makes great sense for a church to teach tithing because by it we truly honour God with our bank balances, we throw down the god of money and demonstrate how spiritual we are. OR do we? By the way we also keep the church ticking over financially which is very handy for people like me - a full time pastor - who needs paying!

Why did no one ever tell me that in the “Law,”  the Old Testament part of the Bible, I got to eat all my tithe at a feast to celebrate God’s goodness? Why did they tell me I had to give 10% of my income when a simple Bible study reveals that you only gave ten percent every three years? Why did no one ever point out that most of the giving mentioned in the New Testament is based on the principle of “giving in keeping with your income” which releases us from the legalism of tithing into the personal free responsibility to find out from God if and what we should give? Why did no one dare to say that in the New Testament most of the giving spoken and taught about is actually giving to poor people and not to sustain the church? Why did no one ever paint such a brilliant picture of church that I wanted to give my all, including my money, to help paint that picture into being?

(Update: Listen to Andrew’s Sunday Talk on The Truth About Tithing)

It’s been a while since I last posted here on this subject - but my thoughts are still bubbling around the verses I wrote on last time from Mark, and how farmers intentionally sow and nurture their crops rather than trying to harvest what grows by itself. This is drawing me back again to encouraging us each to think intentionally again who we might reach.

Something that we have been encouraging for a while is the idea of 5 in focus - praying regularly for 5 people who we would like to see share our relationship with God. But maybe 5 seems too many - how about starting with one? If you could reach one person, who would it be?

As the summer is starting early and promises to be a good one, we dusted off our barbecue at the weekend for the first time. It reminded me of what a fantastic opportunity it is to invite friends/neighbours round to spend time with us - and I always intend to invite them round.  But like me and washing up, there’s nothing wrong with intending to do it, it’s the lack of action that’s a problem!!! Since people often need to belong before they want to believe, how about intentionally setting a date in the next two months to finally invite those people round you’ve been meaning to invite for sometime?

With Hope 08 coming up, if we really want to see our friends and family becoming Christians next year, then I guess we need to start further back and begin clearing the ground in readiness now.

Thank you for your continued prayers for us, and your encouragement - it means a lot to us.

For those of you who have been following our blog, you might be interested to know that as part of the seeker service here at FFMC on Saturday May 5th, Linda will be sharing some of her experiences, thoughts and story. We just pray that something of her experiences and circumstances will help others to be able to trust God in whatever they are facing.

This week the Lunchtme Fellowship (and a few extras) took a coach trip as part of our Easter Activity Week. First we went to Skipton for a bit of shopping and a trip down the canal. It was then off to Clapham for a wonderful tea.

It was a beautiful day so I thought I would show you some pictures.

Thank you all so much for your continuing prayer and practical support - we appreciate you all so much. For the last month or so, Fulwood have begun meeting to pray for us as a family on a Sunday night after the evening service, and when they began Linda was really quite rough. Since then, she has felt so much better, so much so that the last couple of weeks have been some of the best she has had for a long time, and for us as a family, almost normal!!! Thank you.

Last Sunday night we were able to go together to Lancaster FMC where I was preaching in the evening, and the folk there asked for a picture of us as a family so that they could pray for us - and know who they were praying for! We’re not great at family pictures, but here is a couple for you!

Anyone who knows our kids know they are a real scream! Well, a week ago I had to do my first funeral…we will really miss that hamster! It was really interesting watching our kid’s reactions to the death of a pet. Kids are remarkable, and listening to them and their comments was quite revealing. When they told me that Squeaky was now in hamster heaven, the Pastor in me wanted to correct their theology. The father in me on the other hand felt completely different as I watched their faces, and just wanted to hug them and assure them how loved they were. What a picture of our Heavenly Father - not someone far away who is oblivious to how we feel, but rather a good loving Father who just wants to hold us tight when we hurt, a Father who understands pain.

Mind you, when Tim asked if Squeaky had died because he’d thrown him across the room………..(he hadn’t it was old age!)