But God… 

A Follow Up to ‘Miracles Today’ (Nov.2021) by Brian Reeves

Some years ago at SBC in our homegroups we did a series entitled The Purpose Driven Life written by Rick Warren. The essence of these studies was to encourage us to live our lives accompanied and guided by the Spirit of God, such that we are people through whom God lives and works in our community. It is not enough to attend church once a week for worship. We need also to know the guidance and empowering of God’s Spirit in our home lives, our working experience, in our church involvement, in our relationships and in our neighbourliness to those around us. In every part of our daily walk with God our lives are most successful when we live to please our maker.

At the time of this course, I was active in the life of the church serving on the diaconate, and in various other ways. I was working towards building up the fellowship at SBC. Perhaps then it was relatively easy to interpret this teaching into forms of serving. But, how should I interpret it as I am getting older and fraught with Parkinson’s and other diseases? I am sure God must have purpose for people as their faculties become limited! I can assure you that God is still in control and, as set out in ‘Miracles Today’ dated November 2021, that miracles do occur, even in old age. Perhaps even more so! 

In November 2019 I was living on my own and had a fall on the front steps when carrying two bags of shopping in from the car. This was my first sign of Parkinson’s. My fall was seen by a kind lady some 60 yards away who rushed over to give me a helping hand and help me indoors and make sure I was ok. I could still put my weight on both legs but a check Xray the following day found a fracture in one leg which was along the bone rather than across the bone. It was plastered but it did not hinder me using crutches to get about. I thank God it was not more serious and I did not hit my head.

A year or so later I had another fall putting washing on the outdoor line when I lost my balance, tried to steady myself on the rotating airer, and sailed into the bushes landing in a narrow gap between two thorny Berberis bushes. I should have been torn to ribbons by the thorns, but God had other ideas, and although it took some time to get out, I was not even scratched!

On another occasion when I was on my own, I sat on the side of the bath to do my teeth at the adjacent hand basin when I overbalanced and fell, behind first, into the bath, head up against the wall and legs up by the hand basin. I had no idea how I was going to get out but God had thought of that. I managed to reach the controller of the adjacent bath lift and lowered the seat into the bath, shuffled sideways onto the seat and lifted myself out.

I have always enjoyed driving and until 2022 I was blessed to be free from any serious accident. In that year I found that a manual drive vehicle was proving too much for the deteriorating sensitivity in my feet so I swapped my manual drive for an automatic. The single foot control between the brake and the accelerator felt much freer but nevertheless I only travelled short distances from home because of growing Parkinson’s symptoms. In the spring of 2025, I had been driving happily as usual when I pulled into the parking space outside my home and put the brake on. I hit the wrong pedal and accelerated across the footpath crashing the car into next door’s hedge. Was I thankful that there were no people on the pavement? It made a car-shaped hole in the hedge just missing the metal handrail on next door’s path but did no significant damage to the car. The whole miraculous experience could have been so much worse, but God used this to tell me to stop driving. I have continued to lose sensitivity in my feet and this has been the cause of many of my falls.

Another time I lost my telephone. My sister called it from her phone, and it was definitely nearby, but we could not find it upstairs or downstairs. I had my son ring it and we traced it to being on my body somewhere. Eventually we found it inside my slipper; I could not feel it, but I had been walking on it for a couple of hours and praise God, it was undamaged. 

One day I wanted to put some recycle material into the bins situated behind the kitchen door, I bent down to do so and lost balance backwards falling behind first onto a wicker wastepaper basket with a steel wire frame. The basket was totally in the wrong place, but God used it just in the right place to absorb the energy of the fall distorting the basket in the process.

I had another fall in the lounge that propelled a dining chair into the table, damaging both, but God kept me safe apart from some superficial bruising.

As I write this in May 2026, I am fresh from yet another fall this weekend in the kitchen about 5.45pm on Sunday. I fell across the stone floor landing quite heavily on my behind and could not get up. At the same time exactly, there was a phone call from SBC to offer us some sandwiches after the 4o’c Service. When my sister told them I had just fallen, Brian Sharp and the minister immediately came to help me up. But God had even better ideas, drawing their attention on the way to an ambulance just concluding a call to one of our neighbours. The ambulance crew were able to immediately come and check me over and lift me up. All of this within 15 minutes of the fall. Through all of these ‘accidents’ I believe God has been my shield enabling me to avoid serious damage to myself or others around me. Trusting in God is not a passport to a trouble-free life. Like everyone else the Christian lives within a world where sin, disease and crime are rife – we are ‘in’ the world but not ‘of’ the world. To know the Lord on a daily basis means that the Lord may not keep us from trouble, but He will not let us be troubled beyond that we can bear. 

So how, even if we are old, do we exhibit ‘a purpose filled life’ in times when sin, disease and crime are so dominant? One way is to live out the fruit of the Spirit – those God-given attributes of love, joy, peace, patience etc. – and so to counter the dark, hard world around us with constructive warm attributes that mark those who walk in harmony with God. Another is through testifying to the work of God in caring for us so that as others see Him at work they may give Him the glory and turn to put their trust in Him. It is God’s purpose that is important. We all fall from time to time, but God is the key to turn trouble into triumph. If this article inspires, encourages and helps you, maybe that is God’s purpose for this testimony.

Brian Reeves 12 May 2026