Books by Ian Rogers
Books by Ian Rogers
It was amazing. A man with a short leg, who needed a built up shoe, was healed by prayer and had to be lent a normal pair of shoes so he could go home. How frustrating, then, to have been ill for many years, to be part of the dynamic house fellowship, and still not receive healing! Yet this was my wife’s, experience. People say how hard life must be for me as a husband and I always say “Well, it’s even harder for her!” – but in truth her long-term illness has been hard for both of us.
My wife and I met at university, kept in touch, and married some eight years later. I had been an outdoor-activities instructor before ‘coming indoors’ to teach sciences at a Further Education college. We were both active Christians from Anglican and Methodist backgrounds respectively.
My wife (who wishes to keep her name off the net) had experienced a filling with the Holy Spirit prior to marriage and I was similarly blessed about 18 months later. We were both inspired and encouraged by the organist and Bible study leader at our rural Yorkshire parish church, and his wife, who were formerly embers of an Elim Pentecostal church.
A promotion for me led us to move to the southwest, but our Yorkshire home hung fire on the market for three years due to the steel strike and the miner’s strike. At end of a long and fruitless search for affordable local accommodation we were led to a small Christian community, formed by two families moving together to live by Acts 2 principles - ‘sharing all things in common’. After a brief chat they generously offered us the use of the ‘spare’ home on a mutual support basis.
Even when our Yorkshire house eventually sold and we bought our own home ‘down south’, we continued as members of the Community for seven exciting years. People came from miles around to join in the free and moving times of worship, to hear the Bible-based preaching, and to share in the ministry of spiritual gifts. There were many prophecies, words of knowledge and healings.
Ironically, two years after we joined the Community, Deirdre was struck by a several viral infection that refused to go away. Her GP diagnosed post viral fatigue and said she would recover in a few weeks – and then in a few months… maybe. Four years later, though not fully recovered, we thought we could start a family.
Conception didn’t ‘take’ and we started to feel a bit desperate. Then, one evening, a visiting speaker at the Community approached us and asked if we were trying for a child. We said ‘Yes, but without success so far’ and he told us we would conceive a child within twelve months. Nothing happened except one false alarm about ten months later and then, almost to the day, The Wife conceived! We were blessed in due course with a son.
Sadly, The Wife’s health deteriorated. She went through a roller-coaster of apparent recoveries and sudden relapses that were eventually diagnosed as M.E./Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I struggled to balance caring for a sick wife, parenting and the ever-changing demands of the education system. At the age of forty-six, I retired on medical grounds, .almost literally ‘stressed out of my mind’.
Like many carers, I turned to writing, in my case Christian fiction for children. I felt called to write quirky, imaginative stories with clear Christian content. Allegories can so easily be misunderstood or go over the heads of children who have no Christian grounding, as is so often the case these days.
I made one, rather poor attempt at a story (‘The King, the Prince and the Alcaldé’ - Which I am currently re-working and you can find here) and then my son, aged nine, entered an Easter competition at his primary school. The challenge was to create a character based on an egg. Between the three of us we produced a mounted hard-boiled egg with a painted face, an eye-patch, a pirate hat, trousers and a carved wooden leg. Captain Pegg-Legg was born. Family jokes and little stories followed and now, fifteen years later, I have released several ‘Captain Pegg-Legg’ stories and more are in the pipeline. They can be found here on this website.
Sadly, The Wife is still incapacitated. The Boy, now twenty-nine, is now married and has moved on to his own work and ministry. A team of carers support The Wife, giving me freedom toI visit schools, churches, coffee mornings and fetes, selling my books and trying to sow seeds to increase the faith of young readers.
I don’t know why The Wife has not received healing while others have. We both continue, like the ‘importunate widow’ to pray for healing, but, indeed, ‘a thousand years are but a day to the Lord’! We recognise that it may not happen but that ‘All things work together for good for those that love the Lord and are called to his service’.
Personally I have had to learn increasingly to trust God and to trust The Wife to God. Paraphrasing what God said to the prophet Jeremiah*: “If you get worn out running on the plains, how will you manage in the jungle by the river?” Sometimes we just have to run through the jungle.
*Jeremiah 12 v.5
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