It’s a great wow.

I love your obedient faith.

Wow.

Wow-ee.

Thank you.

Thanks for being so honest about this. It’s an interesting issue you have raised – the assumption that we have to be “healed” in order to serve in specific ways.

Evidently, the apostle Paul often ministered out of physical weakness. His Corinthian correspondance is particularly full of his reflections on this fact: the motifs of life-out-of-death, strength-out-of-weakness, and so on, are an amazing series of passages on this theme.

Frank Gamble’s life teaches us that physical disability need not necesarily be a hinderance to (in his case) exercising a pastoral ministry. John Wimber, paradoxically, also was instrumental in seeing many healed while he himself carried sickness in his own body – his angina eventually resulting in his death.

My knowledge of CFS (through my own family) indicates that, properly managed, this condition need not result in a sufferer doing nothing at all. Rather, once their baseline energy level has been established (the amount they can do on their worst day), current medical practice encourages the sufferer to gradually build up their high energy activity over time. I don’t know whether the management of Fibromyalgia is handled in a similar way.

If that were the case, it may well be appropriate for you you to do some of the things you have outlined above – as long as careful thought was given to how these activities fit in the overall picture of your life and family. It goes without saying that close accountability on this, and open dialogue as a married couple, would be esential. You would also benefit from some mentoring in the practicalities of “how” to discharge some of these activities. There are varieties of ways to plant a curch, for instance, and creative thinking linked with godly wisdom could, if the timing were right, help you find a way of doing so that was unique and appropriate to your circumstances.

I would be concerned at an approach that did not take these factors into account and where you just “went for it” without regard for the consequences. This approach, in my experience, will lead to a “boom and bust” cycle that would place great strain on you and your family.

Hope that helps.

Good question.

Iceland is currently a member of the EEA which means that, if you were able to get a job there then you could live there. As a British person, you would have up to 6 months to find a job before you needed to leave the country. Unfortunately your disability would probably be factor there. They have applied to join the EU, which may change things – I’m not sure.

I must admit that I’m also not sure that Iceland is as Christian a country as it appears. something like 94% are registered to the Lutheran Church but only about 2-3% of people in urban areas attend church. I think that Christianity has less influence than it might appear to have.

Still – that just strikes me as a good reason to plant a church there Perhaps one day…