Let's Chat... Grief and belief (with Matt McChlery)

#084. Let's Chat... facing loss and a life-threatening illness, and the effect it can have on your faith.

In these Let’s Chat episodes, I (Claire Sandys) chat one-to-one with a guest who has lived experience or expertise in a particular area of grief.

In this episode I’m talking to Matt McChlery who is a worship leader, podcaster, author, song-writer, father and husband (among other things), from East Anglia in the UK.

In 2016 Matt and his wife lost an unborn child in an ectopic pregnancy, and then he was diagnosed with cancer; Stage Four Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.  These traumatic experiences led him to write the book ‘Standing in the Storm: Living with Faith and Cancer’.

Matt openly talks about what it looks like to balance faith with a devastating cancer diagnosis, the questions he grappled with, and how his faith was stretched but also grew through his illness.

This conversation opens up some big subjects; Where is God when we suffer? What does it look like to believe in a God even when things are falling apart? Can you have a relationship with God? Is He more than a big, mean judge? Why does He allow these things to happen in our lives?

I’ve spoken to a lot of people about loss, and it's only natural that faith and God crop up a lot in the most tragic times we face, whether that's having faith, losing faith, no faith, don’t want faith, wish you had faith, or confused by faith. There's an inherent urge in us when we face something awful to reach to something bigger for help, to want to plead to a higher being for ourselves or on behalf of others. Why is that? Join Matt and me to find out.

For more about Matt, his speaking, books, songs etc, you can visit: https://www.mattmcchlery.com

For his podcast, Christian Book Blurb: https://www.Christianbookblurb.podbean.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattmcchlery
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattmcchlerymin

Transcript

Claire : 0:00

Hello there, and thanks for joining me for another episode of Let's Chat. We're looking at some big ol' questions today. Where is God when we suffer? How can we have a faith when we're facing even the most horrible cancer diagnosis? What does it look like to believe in a God even when things are falling apart around you? And how can you have a relationship with God, rather than just believing He's a big mean judge telling you what not to do. I'm Claire Sandys, host of The Silent Why podcast and blog writer for www.thesilentwhy.com, a podcast exploring how and where we can find hope through grief and loss. In these Let's Chat episodes, I talk to a guest who has experience or expertise in a particular area of loss. And through them because I want to capture some useful magic from each chat, a bit like the Herman's on our usual episodes, I'm building a tool shed metaphorically of equipment to help us face and get through loss and grief. So at the end of each episode, I ask our guests what sort of tool their subject is, and then I add it to my shed. And I'm working on an episode in the future where I'll go through my shed, and pull out everything I've got in there and go through it with you. Now, I've spoken to a lot of people about loss at this point. And something that comes up as a theme quite a bit is faith and God, whether it's people who have it, had it but lost it, don't have it don't want it wish they had it or just confused by it. I think it's a subject or a thought that is often very close by in the big moments that we face in life connected to grief and loss. We think we're about to die in a plane crash or we know someone that might be about to die in a plane crash, for a lot of us whether you have faith or not, there's an inherent urge in us to reach to something bigger for help to want to plead to a higher being for ourselves or on behalf of others. And today's guest seemed like the perfect person to explore this with further. In this episode, I'm talking to Matt McChlery, who is a worship leader, podcaster, author, songwriter, father and husband among other things, he lives in East Anglia in the UK. For those of you not familiar with England, that's the big bump on the right hand side at the bottom, also where I grew up. Matt wrote a book called'Standing in the storm living with faith in cancer' after the loss of an unborn child in 2016. And the discovery that he had a life threatening cancer stage four NonHodgkins Lymphoma. In this episode, he openly talks about what it looks like to balance faith with a devastating cancer diagnosis, how his faith was stretched, and also how it grew through his illness and why he would recommend faith to others. So grab a cup of tea or coffee or maybe a lemsip (that's what I was on for this interview cos I was getting over a really nasty cold) and relax with me and Matt as we chat, grief and belief.

Matt: 2:40

So hi, my name is Matt McChlery. I live in East Anglia in the UK, somewhere near Peterborough. But it's more out in the countryside for those of you who are familiar with the geography of the UK. What do I do during an average week? Goodness me, that is a question and a half that might take the entire episode to explain. I do all sorts of stuff. I work for myself, basically, I am self employed. I used to be a primary school teacher. And what we got to talk about today helped me reevaluate things in my life. And I quit my job doing that. Now. My My passion is working for for the church. And so I work for a local church. Yeah, I'm one of the senior leaders there. I also still do a bit of teaching, but I do tutoring. So I do one on one tutoring three nights a week. And then I also write books. I also have a podcast. I also write songs. I travel about talking and singing and things as well. I've got a family, three young kids. So yeah, pretty busy and full on. That's a sort of summary nutshell.

Claire : 3:53

That to me sounds like a time management nightmare. Are you good at that?

Matt: 3:58

Well, I have a big, thick sort of diary with a page for each day, sort of broken down into half hour segments. And I tell people that that is my brain. And if if it's not written down in there, it isn't going to happen. So, so yeah, it can be a bit of a nightmare. But we do get into a bit of a rhythm, there are certain days where the rhythm is pretty set. And so that's what happens. And then there are other days where there's a bit more flexibility. I've just got to communicate with my wife quite well, to you know, what are you doing? What am I doing? We've only got one car. So it's like, well, who needs the car when to try and coordinate whether things are possible or not. So yeah.

Claire : 4:44

I admire you've got a lot going on there. So it sounds like you're doing well. So going to be talking today about faith which obviously a large chunk of your week and your work also loss and grief, which is a large chunk of my week. So why don't you just give us a bit of a sort of a potted history of what your experience has been with loss and grief throughout your life?

Matt: 5:00

Yeah, sure. So we have ones that I think are common to everyone, you know, like grandparents dying, and sort of dealing with sort of grief and loss like that. But I guess the main ones that that I really struggled with all came at once it was like the buses, you wait forever, and then they all come at once. So in 2016, that was, that was the most difficult year of my life. Really early on in the year, my wife was pregnant with our second child, and she had an ectopic pregnancy. So the embryo implanted in the fallopian tube, rather than in the womb, the child died. And my wife then had to have an operation because if she didn't, she would die as well. So that was all pretty full on, and difficult to come to terms with and heal from and stuff. And then a few months later, in that same year, so it turned out that in the same week, we had two things confirmed. So the first thing was really happy and joyful, is that despite, earlier on in the year, my wife, having lost our second child, she was pregnant again with our third. So that was really happy. But in the same week, we had it confirmed that I had stage four, non Hodgkins lymphoma, which is a type of cancer. And if you are familiar with the cancer world, stage four, there are no other stages beyond stage four. So it was pretty serious. And my life was hanging in the balance, basically. And the doctors did what they could to save my life, which they did, which I'm very grateful for. So it was just a case of in that same week, we kind of just told people are we got we got some news that I go, yeah. What's that? We said, well, Verity is pregnant. Hurray. And I've got cancer. Oh. So yes, it was sort of a bittersweet week that one. But yeah, so then, of course, I had the whole thing of just trying to get through the cancer. And then my wife was dealing with me who was poorly as well as being pregnant as well. So it was a really difficult time.

Claire : 7:23

And how long was that difficult time for? What was the worst initial bit? How long did that go on for?

Matt: 7:28

Well, the start of that happened at around April, early May, time. And all sorts of other things as well to do with selling of houses and things falling through and or happening, all that stuff going on, as well, you know, just all piled in there. But the cancer and the pregnancy thing, it lasted the full nine months, really all the way till the end of the year, because I had six cycles of chemotherapy treatment, each with about three, four weeks in between. And then after that, I then started a two year they call it top up treatment, where it's only part of the chemotherapy cocktail, it's just to try and prolong the period of time, where I don't have that because according to medicine, they cannot cure me. Medicine says it will come back. So that's what the doctors tell me, although I'm having faith, or something else, you might talk about that later. But it turns out that I was in hospital at the same time as my wife. So she was giving birth in one end of the hospital. And I was in the other end of the hospital having my first top up treatment on the Monday we were doing that. And then on the Tuesday I was in having my treatment.

Claire : 8:41

So what was the overriding emotions, then what do you look back on and remember?

Matt: 8:45

It was an interesting journey emotionally. For me, it was very different for my wife. But for me, it was a case of I discovered this lump in my armpits. And I kind of thought, oh, you know, this could be something and you're told to go and ask for advice. If you have a lump. I didn't want to, because you're you have that niggling feeling well, what what if it's something and Isn't it easier just to pretend it isn't there. But then of course, it didn't go away after a week or so. And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna have to tell my wife. And I knew what she would say as soon as I told her so I said, you know, I found this lamp. Right? Well, you have to go to the hospital. You had to go to the doctor today. Go get it looked at got it sorted out. So like, Oh, I was afraid you're gonna say that. Okay. I will. So I went along the doctors. They had a look. At that point. I wasn't terribly concerned. And they were like, Oh, well, yes. You know, we should always investigate lumps. But you know, the percentage and the chances of it being anything serious are very small. So you know, don't worry, we'll monitor it have a look in a month or so see if it's changed, etc. month later, nothing had changed. And I say oh, okay, well, we'll send you to the specialist in hospital to have a look We'll, we'll take it from there. But you know, the same reassuring message of, you know, the percentage and all the rest. And you know, don't don't get too worried about it. So I wasn't too worried about it. And then when we saw the specialist, she felt the obvious lump in my armpit. Yeah. And then she started feeling around in other places. She was quite stern character, I suppose being a consultant, she was quite stressed as well in her work environment, whatever. But, you know, none of that none of the cheery, happy smiley, don't worry about its statistics from the previous doctors, just more kind of matter of fact, to the point. And then she sort of looks at me and she says, so what about all these other lumps? Then? Unlike other lumps, what do you mean other than Zillow, you got you got all these ones in your neck area, you got all these ones? And you're drawn here, and you got these other ones and your other armpit here? And I'm like, what? Do I you know, just you helped me to feel the where are they? And she tried, and I couldn't tell the difference. I couldn't tell if they were enough. So anyway, so she's like, well, we'll send you to get a biopsy of the big one just to see. But we left that feeling rattled, we felt, okay, this, this could be bad news. So we had the biopsy done. It was it was at that point, when I was booked to do some singing at a Christian festival, that we can't, and we decided that I would go there, the strange thing was, I felt absolutely fine. All the dots and things that are you feeling fatigued, are you feeling poorly Are you know, I felt normal, I felt really good. I felt fine. So I decided I would still go along to this conference, sing and play, and sing and stuff. So I went along. And that was one of the best decisions for me. Because during that time, yes, there were other people there. But I didn't know them. I just It enabled me gave me space to collapse in a heap, to just cry. I mean, snot and tears is an accurate description. And just start processing stuff, just saying, you know, why me? You know, asking those sorts of questions. Why, why? What can we do so that God helped me kind of stuff and just trying to process or what's going on? And God met with me in a really special way, in that time, and and he taught me some stuff that really carried me through the rest of that year. Just why me? The answer, I felt I got there was well, why not? Tough to hear. But you know, and from a Christian point of view, the world we live in is broken by this thing that we call sin, this disobedience to God that happened way back in the beginning. And so we live in a broken world, and we inhabit broken bodies. And the great thing about the message of Jesus is that he came, and he broke his body, and sacrificed his life so that we could be restored so that our relationship with God could be restored and this mending this bringing back togetherness could start again. Basically, why not? You? You're not immune from trouble. You're not immune from suffering, just because you're a Christian. I mean, there's some thought out there. And even there's some Christian teaching out there. That's just plain wrong. About You know, well, if you believe in Jesus, you know, you're going to live this happy, shiny life and nothing's going to touch you, you're going to be continually healthy, continually rich, continually lots of money and lots of cars, and you know, a better house and all this kind of stuff. If you believe in Jesus, you know, hallelujah. Life's wonderful. In my experience, and I think in everyone's experience, when you actually go through life, you might believe that for a while, but then the tough stuff comes along. And it all kinds of, you know that that that kind of belief just crumbles away because it's not true. Tough stuff will happen even to Christians, bad stuff will happen to everybody because we're in this broken, fallen world. And for me, it became a case of, okay, I'm in this, what am I going to do about it? What am I? How do I cope with this? And again, God's in that moment, and that weekend, kind of revealed to me for want of a better word, just kind of this this, this feeling I had, was just basically well, so when you become a Christian, some people call it you give your life to Jesus. So basically, what you do is you as you say, you surrender your will. And you say, Okay, I'm not living for myself anymore. I'm living for Jesus. I'm living for your will. And I'll do what you say, rather than what I want. And that's where it begins. And I was just reminded that I had given my life to Jesus All those years back, and that's where I'd actually literally done as well, it wasn't just a, okay, you know, not my will, but Your will type thing, I'll do things your way. It was literally I've given my life to, to Jesus, and that includes my body, I am no longer my own. And I was reminded of something I'd heard before, where we all pray. And I think even those without Faith, when confronted with something like a life threatening illness, or a crisis, or the death of a child or something, you might turn to prayer, even if you don't necessarily have faith, you might, you might want to swear at God, which is completely understandable. You might want to say, God help me or why or whatever, but we kind of often turn to God in a kind of crisis, even if we don't believe in it, and that's fine. And he understands. But so often the case, we want to pray in those times, deliver me from rescue me out of whatever it is, I don't want to be here. Take me out of it, please. And you know, sometimes he does, sometimes he does rescue us from situations. But I was just reminded that sometimes he also wants to deliver us through the suffering, it's actually going through the difficulty living through the hardship that we will find out more about ourselves, or our faith can grow and deeper, or whatever it is, he did not promise me at any moment that I would survive. He didn't say it's okay, you're going to live. But he filled me with such a sense of peace, that I came around to understand that I wasn't afraid of death. I wasn't afraid to die. But I was very sad. of the things I would leave behind. My wife, I had a two year old daughter. At that time, my family, my friends. And you know, life will go on without me. I'm going to miss out on certain milestones in my daughter's life and all of that. I'd only been married to my wife a few years. So yeah, I was sad of what I leave behind, but I wasn't afraid of dying. So emotionally wise, circling back to your question, I had that really turbulent wrestling weekend. And out of it, the sense of peace. And calmness came, I realised that this was so much bigger than me. And I just had to surrender. I had to give up my control. I had to give up my control to God, because my life was his. And, you know, do with it what you will, even if it means I die, so be it. And I had to give up my life, my control to the doctors, and say, You know what, God has given you guys some amazing tools to help me. So here I am. And let's, let's see what we can do. So emotionally, the majority of the time through the treatments, I was quite peaceful and calm about it. There were still odd times when you know, I'd catch myself waking up and go, I've got cancer, but then it was a kind of reminding myself, okay, I have to I have to surrender this I have to give, and then the peace would come in. So that was my experience emotionally.

Claire : 18:39

It sounds like your story is a good example of the relationship that we can have with God. I think a lot of people on the outside look at God and suffering and it's quite a black and white. Well, if there's a good loving God in inverted commas, why would he allow suffering and it's just like it's people see it, that black and white, but what they miss is the relationship there. And how there is a loving God, but there is suffering and the two can actually coexist. It's not one excludes the other. And I love that, that your story shows how much deeper it goes with the relationship because you get that peace, you get that reassurance I'm getting this time when having faith in some ways has made it harder to go through. Were there any points when you thought, oh, gosh, this is harder because of my faith?

Matt: 19:19

I had that sense of peace in me the majority of the time. But it became hard when talking to other people or other people trying to be supportive, trying to help, but just not quite getting it.

Claire : 19:34

The religious platitudes.

Matt: 19:35

Yeah, you get things like, you know, oh, don't worry, God won't give you anything more than you can handle. Right? And in the book I've done I've written about this. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says, God will not tempt you more than you can bear. And that's to do with temptation, and the allure of giving into sin. That's what that's all Talking about, it's not talking about, well, anything in life, he won't give you more than you can handle and people just throws throw that phrase around, oh, well, you've got cancer. Oh, well, don't worry, God, God won't give you more than you can handle. Well, I found, actually, that this was more than I could handle this was bigger than I could cope with. And actually, that's the point. You know, you're missing the point. That's the point. Yes, this is bigger than me. Yes, this is far beyond anything I can cope with. And at that point, when you brought to that place, you have a decision. What are you going to do? Are you going to? Are you going to try and kick and scream and fight against this thing? That's just too massive? Are you just going to throw your hands up and give up and say, Oh, well, this is too big for me. So you know, come and steamroll over me, that's it that tickets I'm out of here? Or are you going to say, well, you know what, I'm going to trust God, I'm going to say, Okay, God, I'm in your hands. And the Bible does say that God will fight for us. So that's what I did. I chose to say, God, you fight for me, because I can't do it for myself. So yeah, so things like that. And also, there is a stream of teaching in some circles of the church where it's like, you know, if if you if you get ill, is this whole circle about you know, you'll be happy, wealthy, prosperous, everything. If you if you're a Christian, that that kind of teaching. And it's like, well, if you're real, you've done something wrong. What have you done wrong? What if you know, you must have committed some terrible sin, because you've, you've got cancer, you need to you need to repent, you need to, you know, come to God and say, sorry, and you know, then then you'll then you'll be healed. And it's just like, Well, yeah, you may believe that. But suffering comes to everyone, and I am clinging on to God, I am trusting in Him, I am putting my life in his hands, it may not look like what you expect it to look like. It may not look like what you think it should look like. But here I am. And if I live or if I die, that's that's up to God. It's not up to how much I jump up and down and shout and scream and turn around in circles 12 times in the back garden, or whatever it is faith as much more relational than that. And I think we misunderstand the Bible. If if it becomes like a formulaic thing, you know, have you tick this box? Have you ticked that box? Have you done this? Have you done that? While you haven't? Oh, well, you know, God's punishing you? Yeah, we need to dig deep into our relationship with Him, rather than trying to make it, you know, this formulaic thing that we control, because ultimately God's in control.

Claire : 22:53

Did you find that it had an impact on the day to day living out of your faith that it impacted in that way, when you're going through days that are just so hard?

Matt: 23:00

I never gave up on my faith in those times. For me, I dug deeper into it. But I did have times of feeling guilty, because I was poorly because I was just curled up on the sofa after chemo treatments, and I couldn't do anything. I was so wiped out. You know, I couldn't read my Bible. I couldn't go to church. There were one or two occasions where I did manage it. But you know, you had good weeks, you had bad weeks. Again, that kind of performance mentality crept in, you know, am I being useful for God in this time? And, and if I'm not useful, then, you know, how much will he love me? And you know, all this kind of thing. And yeah, so there were days where you think, you know, oh, well, I haven't read my Bible in two months. And, you know, surely that's, that's a terrible thing. And I'm not saying don't read your Bible. I mean, if you can, it's a good, it's a good idea. But you know, if if you're in the throes of chemotherapy, and you've got cancer and everything else, and you're completely wiped out, don't beat yourself up about it. You know, give yourself some slack. God is bigger than these things, and he understands and he knows and he's with you. And, you know, Jesus was a man of suffering. And he knows what it's like to be human. He knows what it's like to suffer. And so he can just draw alongside you in those times because he's been there. And he knows what it's like. There's a story in the Bible where Jesus and his disciples are out in a boat, and a massive storm comes up and the disciples are fearing for their lives. There's waves and rain and wind and lightning and but Jesus is asleep in the bottom of the boat is just asleep. And the disciples are scared out of their minds. They wake him up and say, Help us help us we're gonna die you know, sort this out. And he does he graciously says Be quiet wins. calmed down, see and becomes calm. And everyone's very relieved, and everything's fine. But for me from that story, and especially having gone through what I've been through what I tried to do when the storm was blowing all around, rather than look at the storm, rather than focus on the massive waves, and the terrifying lightning and the loud thunder and everything, I tried to curl up in the bottom of the boat with Jesus and go to sleep, and just trust that he was in control, that he had it, he had the situation he had me. And I just wanted to and tried to, even when things were terrible, just just curl up in the bottom of the boat, and go to sleep with Jesus next to me.

Claire : 25:47

Which is a lovely, sort of opposite end of the spectrum from what a lot of, I guess the pressures religion can put on people have you do need to do this, you need to be going to church, you need to be reading your Bible, you need to be a good Christian, you need to be a witness to what's going on, you need to show that God is bigger, you need to show that you're trusting, you know, and that can be very overwhelming for people. And you can start to see at that point where people might turn away from it rather than rely on it. Because the the pressure of trying to do all that is not possible when you're going through chemo and you're feeling so ill. So I can see where that dilemma comes. There's so much uncertainty in the life of faith, like you said, you know, you've got this diagnosis where medicine tells you that the cancer would come back again, my brother's actually living in the same diagnosis with a very similar type of cancer. But at the same time, he's also a Christian had a lot of prayer for healing. So there's that kind of, well, where do we sit on that scale? How much do I lean into God and believe in the healing? How much do I listen to the world of medicine, which would say, Well, we know about this, and this is what happens? Yeah, it could be either. Yeah. And it's very difficult. And that is faith, isn't it? We live in this like, Ah, you got to live in that tension. You do? Yeah, very hard. I think a lot of a lot of the life of faith and grief is like that. And I think sometimes people seem to think, well, if I'm feeling this, or if I'm feeling this destroyed by my grief, or by my loss or by my illness, then it must mean I have less faith. And it's such an important thing to try and show people that you can hold both. But it's not easy. And you will go back and forth between the two sometimes. And that's not a bad thing. You know, faith isn't about certainty, unfortunately, a lot easier. Do you think it's possible to go through these things and not question things at all? Not question, faith, or God? Or like you said, there's points where you cry out, like, Why me? Like, is that just human?

Matt: 27:31

I think it's a that's a perfectly human response. And I think it's dangerous. If we don't question. I think we need to wrestle with stuff. We need to ask difficult questions and even ask difficult questions of God, not be afraid to do it, you know, is going to strike me down if I, you know, question his existence, or his goodness or whatever. Again, it's that whole perception of God being this this horrible person with a big stick, you know, just out to beat you if you get things wrong, which isn't the case at all, we should ask questions. We should, we should. And by going through that, and actually seeking, you know, what, what is what is the truth of the situation here? And then coming coming out the other side, having found some of the answers, hopefully, we'll be better for it.

Claire : 28:26

I think it was kind of a turning point in my faith journey was just realising that it's okay to get angry with God. And I have specific moments in my life, when I remember getting very angry with him about, I don't know what's happening. I don't know why I'm going through this. And I'm just not wanting to talk to you right now. But having that faith of just knowing that, he can take that, and I think we kid ourselves, you know, if God, if he can see everything, and He is everywhere, he sees a lot worse in this world than us getting a little bit angry, or even maybe swearing at God. You know, that's just the least of his worries, I think he wants us to be honest with him. And I think a lot of people do have this impression of a holy judge that just stands in judgement over us and expects us to do certain things. And it makes me sad, really, because I think you miss so much about about his nature and the relationship when you kind of only view it like that. What's the link been for you with hope and faith? Because we talk a lot about hope on the podcast, and people who haven't had a faith would say they have hope in different things or in the future. And but then hope is built into faith in a in a different way. It's a sort of a has a bigger meaning. I think in a faith context, what does that look like for you?

Matt: 29:36

So hope for me, and faith and being a Christian. There's levels to it really. There's sort of a short term hope, as it were, like anyone would have I would imagine where you know, we hope the weather's going to be great on the weekend so they can have a barbecue or go to the beach. We hope that you know we're going to To recover from this, this illness or whatever. And so that's, that's a kind of hope that's great hope like that's, that's, that's great, I have that as well. But for me, especially when I was going through this difficult time, and my life was hanging in the balance, yes, I hoped that I wouldn't faint when they were sticking the cannula into me for my next chemo treatment, because that happened quite a lot. I got this reputation of being a fainter amongst the nurses, it was quite funny. But anyway, so I would hope that that would go well, you know, that kind of thing. But for me, it's also a longer term thing, because I having faith, I don't believe that life ends at death. There is more to life beyond death. And part of that hope, looks forward to spending eternity with God and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit after death, and what that looks like. And so, yes, I have hoped for today, I have hoped for immediate things. But I also have hope, beyond death, because it isn't the end. And so it's holding that that intention as well, that you know, I have hope now, but it's not yet. And I look forward to that time. So, yeah, hope hope can kind of help sustain you even through really difficult times. Because it's not all about the now it's not all about me and my situation right now, that's important. And that's valid. But that's not all there is, there is more, there is hope of something bigger, yet to come. And sometimes we just need to take our eyes off the immediate situation, because it's just too much or too hard or too scary. And actually look further afield, look further away. And so that hope that future hope can really help sustain you in times of suffering and grief.

Claire : 32:22

So just to sort of play devil's advocate, as it were, what if someone's listening to this? And they're thinking, that sounds great, but you survived. So it's all very well, having hope on the other side of things when you're now feeling better? What if you hadn't? What about your wife? How would she feel about it? Or is your faith linked into that at all?

Matt: 32:43

Well, if I had died, as I said, I discovered I wasn't afraid of death. And you know, what, if I had died, I am 100% convinced that my wife and my family would have really suffered, they would have rarely felt the grief of that. And they'd have lots of questions and struggles with with God and all that kind of stuff, which a lot of people do when they lose a loved one, that would have happened for them. But here we go. My hope. Is that because I know my wife has a relationship with Jesus as well. That when going through that trial, she would dig deeper into the her faith. Yeah. shouting and swearing and asking questions and crying and all that kind of stuff. Yes, but not letting go. And really wrestling with God and saying, you know, this is hard, but I'm going to hold on, for me personally, in the midst of anything, and it's not necessarily just the cards or any sort of hard situation. Because I have faith, that's my immediate go to, if I didn't have faith, I wouldn't know where to go. I would find it really, really, really hard.

Claire : 34:09

I think quite often something I go back to a lot is that parental relationship with God and how as parents, even though I'm not I can imagine that there's times when you have to teach your children something, which is a hard lesson for them, because they don't understand it. They don't have the full knowledge of why you're doing it, why you're stopping them having that food or that treat whatever it is they want to do or why when they're older, maybe if they go through grief themselves, or they lose somebody, you watch them in pain, and you want to help them and you can't help them but they still have faith that you're there for them and that you're not causing it. And I do come back to that a lot and seeing God as like a father figure who knows what's best for us. And but we don't always understand why it's happening. And it's about trusting that we know that he is a good person. And if we don't have that trust that he's good, then I can understand why people move away from it and struggle with it because they don't really get that good heart there in the first place. Yeah, yeah, it's sort of helps me sometimes, if somebody is listening, and they don't have any kind of faith not interested in God, then first of all well done for listening this far, because that's a lot of good stuff to listen to. But it why should they even consider it? What is it about having a faith that you think you know what it's worth just getting to know a bit more about this? Why should they bother?

Matt: 35:28

That's a good question. I'll use a story. So those two guys, and they both need to build a house, and they find some land to build a house, one guy finds a rock a really solid piece of ground, and another guy finds some a sandy piece of ground, but you know, pieces of ground five, all right, they both go about building their houses, they both build their houses. And they could, for the sake of the story look identical to each other, maybe even built with the same materials that you know, you know, you know, these housing estates, where you get all these houses that look the same. So let's go for it. Two houses that look the same, built by these guys, one on a rock, one on some sand. And then some storms come. And there's massive rain and clouds and water and everything. And what happens is they both run inside into the house as you do. But the guy who built his house on the sand that gets washed away, and completely and utterly destroyed, and the guy who built his house, on the rock. Now, I'm not going to say that his house was completely fine. I think the storm was bad enough that there was damage done to the house, there was flood damage, you'd need to you know, get the stuff replastered you need to get the carpets done, you know, damage was done to the house, okay. But the key thing is the house stood standing because it was built on a solid, grounded had firm foundations. And so why why bother looking into faith? Why bother? Well, because building these houses is building our lives, and what we build our life upon matters. And for me personally, building my life on the Christian faith has proved to be the solid rock that I can rely on that I can stand on. When the storms and trials of life come, I know that I can survive them. I know I can get through them. Because my foundations are dug deep into Jesus. I'm not saying I will be unscathed, that, you know, there is still trauma and healing and everything else to come out the other side. But I'm not completely wiped out. I'm not completely devastated. I'm not completely destroyed, which is one reason I would encourage people check it out. Check out faith and maybe if you have listened to the podcast up until this point, you're starting to get the idea that faith in Jesus is more about a relationship than it is about following rules and obeying, you know certain instructions and doing things that God isn't angry with you that's that's not what it's about. It's about loving, personal relationship with a living God, who is concerned for you, who loves you, who wants to be involved with you and your life, and is willing to be that rock to be that stable foundation that you can stand on when the storms of life come

Claire : 38:55

Reminds me of a quote I've heard a few times with someone said that when they hit rock bottom, that was the solid foundation that they built their life back up on again, which is lovely. And I think for the Christian, you've got that added element of that kind of foundation being the Rock of Ages, that very firm foundation, which is the beautiful way of expressing kind of what it means to people when you're building these lives. Before I ask you my last question, How are you now health wise?

Matt: 39:22

I'm good. Thank you. I've been in remission for six years now. Which is great. I mean, I I still get ill colds and everything else. I had a bad back recently, you know, and then sciatica on my legs and the cancer. I had a massive tumour in my abdomen and that's permanently damaged one of my kidneys. So I've got a few little issues around that. But you know what? And I say it in my book as well. It's called standing in the storm living with faith and cancer by the way, in case you're interested in reading it, that I'm happy to deal with that stuff. It means I'm alive. If it means I'm here, you know, but yeah, so health wise, I'm alright. I'm okay. And there haven't been signs of it coming back, I do get an annual checkup now, just to see if you know how things are going on the cancer front. And I've been all clear up until now.

Claire : 40:19

It's good news. Good to hear. So we've been speaking about faith as a tool to help us prepare for going through loss. So if I went to my garden shed to pick out a tool that represented faith, what kind of tool do you think that would be?

Matt: 40:32

Well, that's an interesting one, too. I'm going to go with something that isn't the garden shed, which is a garden umbrella, because it has a very firm and secure base foundation. And it's an umbrella. So when storms come, you can hide under it, you can shelter underneath it. And that's pretty much what I did. I used my faith in Jesus in those difficult times to give me a solid foundation, and also to shelter and hide underneath the storm.

Claire : 41:10

And umbrella. I love how many things I have in my shed that might not technically be tools, but which are super useful and offer us another way of preparing for loss. And now I have some shade or storm protection, for when I'm using my garden chair that I've already acquired. If you want to find out more about Matt, you can visit www.mattmcchlery.com or check out the show notes where I'll put links to his website, podcasts and social media. Thank you so much for this honest conversation, Matt. I'm so pleased to hear you're in good health again now and long may it stay that way. Thanks for listening to The Silent Why podcast. If you've got any questions about what we've been talking about or want to explore it more, feel free to get in touch with me. Or if you have a subject you'd like me to chat to an expert on, drop me an email at thesilentwhy@gmail.com And Let's Chat...