Practical experience helps bring theoretical study to life. The colour is added, all three dimensions are present. So it was with my study of the raising of Jairus' daughter.

When a close relative fell suddenly and seriously ill, I was devastated. All my material interests and ambitions paled into irrelevance. I turned to prayer. Could Christ intervene? I opened an old bible, given me when I had attended Sunday School. Some passages were marked in ink. I was led to a passage I had once studied as a child, a passage which I suppose I had read as a story then. It seemed burningly relevant. The illness of the woman who touched Christ on the way to Jairus' house was an 'issue of blood'. That was relevant to the situation. Regarding Jairus' daughter I singled out two passages in particular: 'Fear not: believe only and she shall be made whole.' 'Weep not; she is not dead but sleepeth.' (Luke 8.41 - 56)

I had to travel a lot between the hospitals involved and my workplace. To be able to read the gospel on the train I took a small illustrated St Luke, bought from a gospel - stall in the street over twenty years previously. It had cost 2d.

I was also struck by the verse: 'For with God nothing shall be impossible' (Luke 1.37). The three verses above were meditated upon particularly during the period of crisis. They still are. I felt it difficult to do but I read the gospel at the patient's bedside. My own faith strengthened, I thought as I read of the double miracle of the possible significance of the twelve year period involving both people cured - how this shows the link between those whom Christ loves.

The crisis passed and the patient was made whole. I offer this short note in thanks, in the hope that others will derive inspiration from it, and also to underline the importance of the work of those who spread the Word of God, whether inside churches or outside.

Brian Taylor