Jonathan Bellamy spoke with Margaret Cornell about the death of her son, experiencing healing and some of her other encounters with Jesus.

Margaret: I was in hospital because I had a kidney stone removed and I felt terrible. I didn't feel terribly ill when I went in. I felt much more ill after I'd had the operation. I knew God had wanted me to go in to the hospital because he told me that there was somebody in there that he wanted me to touch and this woman turned up in the bed right next to me and I was able to minister to her which was a big bonus. But one night, I think it was the third day after the operation, I'm lying in bed waiting for the nurse to come and switch the lights off, feeling absolutely appalling when I shut my eyes and suddenly I felt the touch of Jesus on my feet. I didn't see him, but I sensed his presence standing at the bottom of my bed. The power of God went right up my legs through my body and out the top of my head and I opened my eyes really startled because I thought, "Whoa! That was Jesus!" Then I felt such peace and I drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up in the night, I didn't have a pain on the side I'd had the op, but I had a pain on the other side. I felt this horrible little voice say to me, "Look now, there was so much strain on that other kidney, there is a disaster on its way." Do you know I suddenly realised who was talking to me and I said, "Satan, I'm not gonna listen to your rubbish, you just get lost and leave!" And it just all stopped and I fell back to sleep.

When I woke up in the morning my body felt alive and full of wellbeing. I'd still got the drip and the drain in, as they'd not yet been taken out. And I thought, I am going to sit up and see what happens. So I sat up, without using my hands, so that it put a strain on my stomach where the huge scar was and I had no pain. I swung my legs out of the bed, I jumped up, I slapped my side where the scar was and I had no pain whatsoever and I put my hands in the air and touched my toes and I knew that I was completely and utterly healed. I witnessed to the doctors and the nurses and the lady across in the next bed said, "Goodness me, you're so well!" and I said, "Yes, Jesus came in to the room last night and touched me and he's healed my body" and it was a glorious testimony.

Jon: Wow what an extraordinary experience. Let me ask you about something that would have been a most difficult part of your journey. You lost one of your sons.

Margaret: That's right.

Jon: Philip, who was eight years old I believe at the time. Tell us something of that journey, what happened, but also what the effect of it was?

Margaret: Philip was eight and a lovely child, who truly loved God. Just two weeks before he was killed, he said to me, "Mummy, I do love Jesus and I read my Bible every night." I was really sure that he was truly saved and walking with God. However, the day when this happened he had a new bicycle and he asked if he could ride down the road and visit his friends. I said yes, just be careful, you know, take it easy. He went down the road and visited his friend. What I didn't know was that he and the friend had asked the friend's mother if they could go out on their bikes and so, being adventurous little boys they rode all the way to Mildenhall and played by the river and then rode back. It was on the way back that the wind was very fierce, so Philip being a sensible little boy just stopped and walked on the pavement with his bike. Then, unfortunately, he decided to get back on his bike and rode across the road. Well, coming along the road, on a blind bend, there was an American car and, of course, you can't see round that side because the wheel is not on the right, it's on the left. So this woman couldn't see him at all and he was hit and flew into the air and hit his head on the top of the car.

He was taken to hospital and we heard about it and we went to Bury Hospital. He was to all intense and purposes gone. He had no consciousness and his temperature was dropping. We didn't know anybody that really believed in healing at that particular point. We didn't know the Bible, as we were baby Christians. At one particular point I had the power of God come into my hands and I put my hands on Philip and he pulled his leg up and he lifted his head off the pillow three times and then fell back lifeless. There were three nurses in the room at the time and they saw it all happen. I look back and I think, well, I would have just said, "In the name of Jesus get up" now because I know that healing is what God wants for our lives, however, they asked if we would allow them to turn the machine off that was keeping him alive on that Sunday night and we agreed. We went home without him and that was terrible.

I went and did a talk in a school recently and a little boy asked me, "What's the best experience and what's the worst experience you've ever had as a Christian?" and I said, "Well, they are one and the same thing. I said, when my little boy died it was the worst thing I could possibly think could happen, but actually it turned out to be almost the best thing because I discovered that God was more than enough. I discovered that his comfort and his peace were available. And God spoke to me and he said, "If you look at me I will keep you in perfect peace." And so I did fix my eyes on Jesus. I cast my whole heart upon him and he constantly strengthened me and gave me peace. That's what really touched the hearts of so many people. It's not that we didn't weep, it's not that we didn't grieve, but we didn't live there; we didn't live in the grief, we lived in the victory of his comfort and his presence and it was the same for my husband. You know 80% of relationships break up after the death of a child, but it strengthened our relationship. It brought us closer together, but I know it was the grace of God that enabled us to do that, it wasn't a natural thing. When you've proved God in a dire situation, it takes away your fear of other things. Other things seem very small in comparison that we meet in everyday life. God showed he was faithful.

Jon: What was the effect on other people? You mentioned it had an effect. What was that?

Margaret: Well, when people came to visit, we often ended up comforting them and people said, "How is it that you are able to be like this?" We said, "Well, do you know about the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Have you had that experience? Are you born again, or, have you invited Jesus into your heart?" Some of those that had never invited Jesus into their heart did so and others were baptised in the Spirit.

We had been thought rather odd by our church. It was a typical rather sad Anglican church, where there wasn't a lot of hunger for God and there wasn't a lot of reality. Although the vicar was very sincere and he was doing his best, it didn't really have any take-off in the Spirit. Well gradually people began to respond to the Holy Spirit and many of the people we knew began to want to pray. We had the first prayer meeting we ever had, a really Spirit-filled prayer meeting in the church vestry and one of the church wardens who really didn't approve stopped me in the street and said, "I heard you in there", he said, "Alleluia and all that!" And you know, many people didn't understand, but what happened was there was a depth and a new life that just came into the church and I think the vicar was very encouraged. In fact, he asked me if I would pray with him to be baptised into the Holy Spirit and then his wife received the Holy Spirit. I think she was in the bath when she received the Holy Spirit. So it kind of changed everything.

Jon: Wonderful. Now a little bit later after that, you pastored a church for 25 years. I want to move on to the latter end now. I'd like you to share about some of the stuff that you're doing overseas, because I know that God's opened up many doors for you to minister in different parts of the world like Columbia and in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, so it would be great to hear some of your stories there.

Margaret: We've been to preach in Nigeria. My most precious experience when I went to Nigeria was one evening when Francis Whallyokee who had invited us to go, had found himself double booked and he said to Tony, "Would you preach at the meeting this evening instead of me?" So Tony said, "Why don't you ask Margaret, she loves to preach?" So he said, "Oh yes, yes Margaret, would you like to do it?" So I said "Yes, I'd love to."