| Healed at last |
 A jilted husband with murder in his heart found God after forgiving his enemies, and now has a life beyond all expectation – despite suffering a rare and incurable heart and lung condition.Sixty-year-old Derek Batham, of Dudley, West Midlands, believes he’s living on God’s extended time after being diagnosed with cardiac sarcoidosis back in 2002. A lung specialist informed him that he would be dead within two years as his last-hope treatment had failed and there was no further cure. But Derek refused to accept his “death sentence” and is firmly convinced of divine intervention. “I am my own walking testimony, as I should be dead,” he says. The rough-and-ready former Black Country factory worker, who became a Christian in his early 40s, responded one day at his church to what he thought was a call for prayer for anyone suffering from serious illness. “When I got to the front of the church I couldn’t believe it, I was surrounded by young people and thought there was no way they had serious illness like me,” he recalls. “It had actually been an altar call for something to do with the Holy Spirit. But a friend still prayed with me and I fell to the floor and felt peace.” Not many weeks later the friend confirmed Derek was not to worry about the two-year deadline as God had actually granted the additional two decades he’d requested! Derek, who was fitted with an internal cardiac device about three years ago, admits his present-day life as a church friendship group leader at his home is a far cry from his chequered past when he would “fall out even with his own shadow”. “I was not a nice character and didn’t even like myself. When my first wife got pregnant by another man, I sorted him out and he left the area. But when she got involved with someone else, I really cracked up and even planned how I was going to kill him.” However, Derek was to meet a church minister, who had a profound effect on his life. “I was in a rebound relationship and wanted to get married, but this was only possible if we agreed to attend the minister’s church. I thought ‘I’ll go just to keep him happy and as soon as he’s married us that will be that.’ “But I really got into it and wanted to know more and more and continued to go after we married even though my new wife stopped doing so after we wed.” Full of hatred Derek faced a massive dilemma – he felt he could never become a Christian as he was still full of hatred for his first wife’s new lover. He admitted: “Although newly married I was still in love with the mother of my children. I couldn’t sleep as the whole thing was on my mind 24 hours a day. “But at a fellowship group one night the minister asked if I wanted to get rid of the blockage and I said yes. As the whole group prayed it was as if a big weight lifted off my shoulders. All the anger and hurt disappeared like you couldn’t describe.” That moment made a huge difference to Derek, though it wasn’t the end of the hard road he had to travel. That marriage failed too, a source of deep regret for him. But he carried on attending church, and has grown in his discipleship – and has been married to third wife Maggie since 1996. She became a Christian after seeing how happy he was each time he arrived home from church. |
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