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This week I learned that my treatment at the General Hospital in June was a complete success.
So I look back on my twelve days in hospital with great thankfulness, and now is a good time to write about it.
Two things stand out for me, and I think they matter to us all.
1. The comfort of friends. In hospital I knew I had the good wishes and thoughts and prayers of many people - family, friends, well-wishers, fellow-Christians. I received messages, cards, and visitors.
The visitors (who often brought the messages) were there with me, and their company was the supreme comfort.
At the really bad times, when words failed us, it was having someone there, with a hand to hold perhaps, that comforted me.
We need one another: solitary confinement is deadly.
So I was deeply indebted to all these people; and here I say my particular thanks to all my comforters from St Alban’s and St Mary’s.
2. The care at the Hospital.
From first to last, and from everyone who dealt with me with all their special skills, I received wonderful care.
There was the astounding technology and the astounding skill of those who used it; the treasury of other resources and of those who used them; all expended on me with unfailing care and goodwill.
They did all, and I was in their hands.
I felt I was in a wholly caring community.
Whatever their feelings or motives or beliefs, they acted care (they were practising the second Great Commandment).
The department, the whole hospital, the NHS, are the agents of neighbourly love.
Both these experiences assure me that God is at work in his world.
When the world is as ravaged by human selfishness as it is today, such assurement is comfort indeed.
And we are all delighted, of course, that John’s treatment has been so successful, and that he has returned to his former energetic self! Ed.