Goff writes of Gospel hope through tragedy
Former Norwich church leader Goff Hope has written a book about the hope in the Gospel and the goodness of God, drawing on his personal experience of tragedy, losing his daughter and his own battle with cancer. Keith Morris reports.
In the face of suffering, hard places or death, Goff, who has been a leader at King’s Community Church Norwich, for over 30 years, encourages in his book Hope Wins. “Hope is fundamental for human wellbeing but it is in short supply in our world,” he writes. “We can quickly be robbed of hope by illness, personal tragedy or by the sheer oppressive nature of news headlines.”
Drawing on his own personal experiences, including the tragedy of losing his daughter and his own battle with cancer, Goff shares how holding on to the Christian hope of an eternal future transformed the darkest moments of his life.
“Sometimes it takes difficult circumstances to wake us up to the bigger questions of life, such as our future hope,” writes Goff.
“You never forget the moment you hear the words, ‘You probably already guessed – you have cancer,’ said the doctor. Amazingly, I hadn’t. My mind was racing, trying to process the shock-inducing news that I had stage 3 prostate cancer. I was a fit and, so I thought, healthy 56-year-old who took pride in my fitness, enjoyed running several times a week and rarely visited the doctors.
“Here I was, still at least ten years away from planned retirement, facing the real prospect of dying what I considered to be a premature death. That was not in the script. The truth is, we tend to think that we are in control of much of our lives, that we can expect to live a long and relatively healthy life, thanks to medical science and the comforts of our modern, affluent lifestyles. When our comfort zones are rocked by something like cancer, however, we realize that in fact we are really rather frail. Being a Christian doesn’t change that.
“In the days, weeks and months that followed, I learned some important lessons about the nature of fear and faith, the way we think, and the importance of having a solid, living, future hope,” writes Goff.
“The second incident that caused me to draw more deeply on the subject of the Christian’s future hope was when our daughter, Ali, suddenly became ill while away on holiday with her husband, Dan, and children, Annabelle and Luke.
“They were camping in Devon and Ali woke one morning feeling uncomfortable, and felt it was sufficient to seek out a doctor. A visit to the local surgery quickly led to being admitted to hospital the same day, the doctor suspecting that her discomfort might be due to something more serious than gallstones.
“We got a call from Ali and Dan that evening from her hospital bed, explaining the situation, saying that she would be having some scans and that they would know the results the following day. I am finding it hard to type these words even three years later.
“We of course set about praying fervently that the results would show that nothing serious was wrong. The call came the next day. The results of the scans showed that our precious daughter had secondary cancer of the liver and primary breast cancer. We were devastated.
It had all happened so suddenly – one minute she was well, the next very seriously ill.
“Hospital appointments began almost immediately, and every time we drove the 20-mile journey to visit, Angie and I prayed all the way there and back. We didn’t let up. But Ali got worse. That period of our lives remains a painful time for us to recall. Just two weeks later, on the Monday, we drove over to visit her again, now in hospital. When we arrived, she was clearly feeling uncomfortable, attached to various drips, and conversation was getting difficult. In the evening as we left, we kissed Ali goodbye, saying that we would be back in the morning. It was to be the last time we saw her alive,” said Goff
“It is now around three years since our daughter, Ali, died and we continue to have moments when memories of her bring sadness to our hearts and tears to our eyes, even though we know the end of the story, because that is then and this is now and right now we feel the sadness of being so suddenly separated from our daughter.
“But I am getting ahead of myself. We comforted ourselves with the thought that our daughter was no longer in any pain and that she was with her Lord and Saviour Jesus. Nevertheless we were feeling considerable pain in our great loss, and before long the questions began.
“When it comes to grief and our grieving the loss of loved ones, I have come to see that it is actually helpful to express our questions. And it is biblical! In fact, there is a word for it: lament.
“I think that those conversations, those laments are good and helpful because they are not hopeless musings, more likely to leave one depressed than encouraged. They are honest, open conversations with a heavenly Father who I know cares deeply for us, and whose loving kindness towards us I am certain of, and like the psalmist, I usually end up worshipping,” said Goff.
“As time has gone on, I have begun to realize that actually we don’t want to ‘get over’ Ali’s death and get back to busy normal. Yes, we certainly want to move on from feeling distraught, but we don’t want to forget her; we want, every so often, to talk about her, to remember her and share memories and special moments.
Goff concludes in his book: “I am convinced that as Christians today we need to rediscover the importance of that clear and certain hope, what it means for us individually and for the world in which we live. Only then will we have the antidote to the epidemic of anxious fear that is in contemporary culture, rediscover ‘inexpressible and glorious joy’ in the face of life’s challenges, and have a message of astonishing hope for an increasingly hope-less generation.”
Hope Wins - How a Vision of Our Eternal Future Impacts Our Lives Today, is published by Authentic Media Limited, at £10.99. Is available from Revelation in Norwich and other bookshops.
Read our previous story about Goff Hope.
Pictured above is author Goff Hope.