He that is in me is greater than he that is in my gullet!
// October 13th, 2008 // 8 Comments » // Family, Sunday
So about 3pm on Saturday I was making my way home from looking after Gosia following her 4 day hospital stay thinking “I never want to see this place again”…. little did I know that 24 hours later I’d be in the back of an ambulance myself on the way back!
I’d just been enjoying a nice meal with our guest speaker – Pastor Tim Hall – following one of the most amazing Sunday mornings we have ever had in Leeds.
(The place was rammed and rammed with lots of new people and invited visitors too. By the end of the service we’d seen around 6 people make a decision to become a Christ-follower for the first time and the altar call was littered with people who’d fallen down under the power of the Spirit as Pastor Tim ministered healing. People we’re even getting saved during the coffee break after the service as Tim wandered around the crowds chatting with people! In the last 3 weeks we’ve seen nearly 20 decisions which is more than we’ve seen in the last 2 years put together! this is breakthrough time!)
Anyhow – I’d ordered a Sirloin steak medium rare – as all good men should order in a restaurant. The apertif’s had been enjoyable and stirred the appetite for something more. So by the time the steak arrived I was really looking forward to it, I even chomped on a few chips to let the steak sit there just beckoning to be eaten… and then finaly that moment arrived… I sliced into a piece of steak, popped it in my mouth and then…
Well.. then instead of it slithering, beautifully down my throat to be digested in good time in my stomach it decided to stop just below my voice box at the head of my gullet. In a move that was quicker than Uriah Bolt I dashed for the nearest toliet where I spent the next 15 mins trying to throw up the piece of steak that was admantly trying to stay put at all cost. And we tried everything – Colin Blois enjoyed a few minutes thumoing my back until my Youth Pastor took the opportunity to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on me which I know he secretly enjoyed! But all to no avail!
The following couple of hours involved a Paramedic on a bike who could do nothing… as you’d expect from any emergency response that arrives by pedal power. Then an ambulance (first time for everything). then I found myself in the same waiting room as last week waiting the for the same doctors to tell me I had something stuck in my throat! They even X-Ray’d me to make sure I could still breathe after which I was very relieved to be told I could – even though by this time I’d been in the hospital 2 hours so I figured out myself that either I’m David Blane or I can actually breathe!
Finally off to Ward 91 and the lovely doctors and nurses who were able to care for me and do nothing else about the piece of steak stuck in my throat other than to inject some drug into my arm 3 times and say, “It’ll work it’s way down eventually”. And it did… sometime around 3am I guess – but I was asleep and woke to the lovely feeling of a ragged gullet and a sore throat soothed only by a good cup of English Tea!
So here I am back home thinking that was the week that was and just very glad that God is bigger than a piece of steak stuck in my throat!
Chris is the Congregation Pastor of 
