Conversation with God. David C. Wilson

for payment of eighteen months rent and our share of the utility costs, together with the associated legal costs and interest. In all, this amounted to a quite preposterous five figure sum, which, as is often the case, bore no relation to reality. Everything had happened so quickly, and rather than remain under what had become an oppressive, feudal regime at the old offices, we had executed a tactical withdrawal to a seemingly more defensible position—but was it? I knew that my tormentor had many connections with the local law firms, and I therefore decided to use a solicitor based some distance from the town. The defense I presented to our solicitor was based on the initial agreement to form a “financial services centre,” and our erstwhile associate’s failure to honor that agreement by not introducing new financial products sales leads to us. We had suspected that our adversary was placing financial products business elsewhere, but initially, we had very little in the way of hard evidence for this, and my interviews with our solicitor were very unfulfilling. Indeed, he seemed to spend most of the meeting trying to dissuade us from fighting, and my main recollection is of passing the time quite enthralled by his white, well-manicured hands. Nevertheless, we left the battle in what we thought were also his capable hands, only to receive a rude awakening one morning in the late summer.

      When the bailiff knocked at the door we didn’t know what to do, but were able to successfully protest that the case—so far as we were aware—had still not yet been resolved. Fortunately, the bailiff offered to return within a week to allow us the time to find out exactly what had transpired, and this despite holding an order to seize our goods. A telephone call to the solicitors office left us in a panic, for it seemed that our solicitor had simply failed to turn up at a court hearing—presumably an application for summary judgement—and in his absence, the judge had upheld the claimant’s case. We were in the doldrums of despair, since we were not only facing an implacable enemy who was besieging us with weekly visits from the bailiffs, but in addition, now had to contend with a negligent solicitor. Naturally, we prayed, and were consoled by the perception from the LORD that “your enemies are my enemies,” indeed, as new Christians we were constantly surprised by how often this ‘nice’ New Testament God was expressing some very Old Testament sentiments. In this knowledge, we took steps to relieve the intolerable pressure we were under, by employing another firm of solicitors, making sure that this time they were ‘up to the job.’ To this day I still do not know how to evaluate a firm of solicitors, but having been ‘bitten’ by a small firm, I decided to use the biggest firm I could find, even if this meant a trip to the big city. The policy seemed to pay off, for I was soon dealing with a smart, young lady solicitor, who, although requiring much exhortation to do so, prosecuted our adversary to a standstill over the next eighteen months. Before our enemy was vanquished, however, I joined in one of Chris’s sessions with the prayer group, where I was left in no doubt that the LORD wished me to forgive my adversary face to face for the pain he had, and was still inflicting on us. A meeting was duly arranged, and I proffered my forgiveness together with a proposed four figure settlement of the claim, only to be met with his uncomprehending gaze and an outright refusal to compromise. The episode had been an early one amongst many during these post conversion years, an exercise in humility, and of going the ‘extra mile’ in the face of a dogged hostility that showed no pity.

      The Regime

      Throughout this embattled time, Chris remained as thoroughly anorexic in behavior as ever, and was once again nearing a life-threatening five stones in weight. In the early summer, a serious asthma attack had resulted in an emergency, ‘middle-of-the-night,’ admission to hospital, requiring a stay of a few days in order to stabilize her condition. It was abundantly clear to the emergency doctor that he was dealing with a very emaciated lady, whose medical history of self-harm gave cause for concern, and when Chris was told he was consulting a psychiatrist colleague, she quickly discharged herself. Before doing so, however, she was able to observe a curious phenomenon, across those few days of recuperation spent in a medical ward.

      The great danger with asthma is the increased strain on the heart, and this was of special concern given Chris’s advanced anorexic condition, so much so, that her heart was monitored remotely. Information would be transmitted to the ‘cardiac room,’ whose staff were able to alert the ward supervisor by telephone, in the event of an emergency. As she lay there ‘hooked up’ to the cardiac room, Chris would often pray, and as she did so, she found that this invariably brought the nurses rushing to her bedside to check on her condition. In all, this must have occurred some five or six times, leading to the seemingly inescapable conclusion, that her bodily functions of heart rate and blood pressure were being affected by her prayers. Clearly, this wouldn’t be the first time that the Holy Spirit’s attendance in response to prayer has had physiological consequences, with the first recorded incident occurring at Pentecost to the ‘drunken disciples’ (Acts 2:13,15).

      On her return home, Chris simply carried on where she left off, with her daily food intake amounting to little more than two rounds of burnt toast and a banana. It wasn’t the quantity of Chris’s food intake, however, that impressed itself upon one of her friends from college days, but was instead the erratic nature of her meals, which seemed to hold the key to a remedy. Our ‘angelic’ friend felt this so strongly, that she offered to spend a two week holiday with Chris, regularising that food regime. Chris’s friend, Sheila, was an avid bird watcher and animal enthusiast, and so it seemed ideal that the two of them should holiday in a nearby valley, renowned for its wildlife. I was able to rent a farm cottage for them at the heart of this partially wooded valley, and whilst I continued to work from home, they would spend the days driving the country lanes and watching the foxes, deer, and herons. We quickly established a routine, and most evenings I would travel the four miles or so to the cottage, after which we would all pop over to the local pub for a drink. But it was during the daytime that most headway was made, as Sheila—a very forceful character—imposed a routine upon the day, ensuring that Chris rose for breakfast time, before they left to buy a paper, to shop or perhaps watch the heron fish. Lunchtime was equally regularized, and could either be spent in the local pub or back at the cottage, before an afternoon’s activities of various kinds soon brought teatime. It was a very exhausting regimen for Chris, who, even with Sheila’s gentle persuasion, was still consuming less than five hundred calories per day, every one of which she counted. Nevertheless, the training worked and at the end of two weeks Sheila was exhorting me to maintain the regime she had begun. Strangely, Chris cooperated in all this, and it seemed puzzling until I realized that the very regularity permitted her to calculate her intake all the more accurately. In order to maintain Chris’s cooperation, I acquiesced when she requested elaborate salads comprised of fresh herbs, sesame seeds, and celery, knowing all the time that these meals were nutritionally almost valueless. The regime of three, not quite ‘square’ meals a day, was maintained however, and we began to use our much neglected dining room—the most pleasant, indeed the cosiest room in the house—to take ‘time out’ to enjoy our meals together. This re-introduction of the social element to meal times was perhaps the most significant feature of the new regime.