Heather Bellamy spoke with Arthur Wakelin about his journey of faith and how he and his wife coped with health challenges including prostate cancer and septicaemia.

Arthur: With great difficulty I have to say. Of course all the family were around; some weren't taking it at all well. Her mum wasn't taking it very well at all, which is understandable. My son didn't take it too well, neither. I suppose we all didn't take it well, really. When they were doing the operation, they said, if we don't operate she'll die; if we do operate she'll die on the operating table. I went strolling through the corridors of the hospital praying. I couldn't do anything else. In fact, I went down to the ward I had been on and told them why I was there. They actually put me a camp bed in a store room, so I could at least go and lie down and have a couple of hours sleep, but you don't feel like sleeping.

Heather: How did she come through?

Arthur: A lot of people prayed. All over the world people were praying I discovered. People came in to pray with her. Somebody came in with a great big prayer sheet. They put it over the bed and prayed with her. The nurses in the intensive care, I don't know what they made of it, but they were amazed at all this coming and going. There were more people in dog collars than anything that were coming in and praying. People were praying at church. The night she had the operation, the guy who prayed for us in the first place before I went into hospital, I didn't tell anyone what had gone on, but he worked at the hospital, so he called the church to prayer and they prayed. The time they started praying was when they took Muriel down to the surgery and the time they stopped was when she came out. They didn't know that. There was a lot of prayer that brought it through, but all the way through the doctors said there was no hope. I met someone from her brother's church who works in the path lab and he was telling George that there was nothing they tested that was showing she would live.

Heather: And how has she recovered?

Arthur: Slow really. They had a lot of scar tissue because she has septicaemia. They managed to save a lot of stuff, but it's been slow. Now it affects her. She can walk around the house and she walks around church. If we go out anywhere, I've got a wheelchair in the boot that I can push and she's got an electric wheelchair at home that she goes out in. She can't walk for long or stand on her feet long really; but God has been faithful and we do not lack anything. If you go through Psalm 23 you end up in glory and that's where we're going to end up, in glory.