Looking back I suspect the boys can barely remember a time when I was totally well. The bouts of illness became more frequent as the years passed and eventually I was asked to resign from my full time teaching post on grounds of ill health. In fairness the doctors tried everything they could but at the end of those 17 years of ill health I was told that I had an incurable, recurring illness.

One might suspect that after 17 years of illness I would not have been surprised by this news. In actual fact I felt devastated. As I recovered after each bout of illness I prayed and believed that God would heal me. This prognosis seemed so final and I could feel the hope I had of healing fading away.

That year Geoff and I took a holiday in Canada and one Sunday evening we went to the Toronto Airport Fellowship. By chance it happened to be a healing service and as the prayer team prayed with me I felt a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit and God started his healing work then and there. Certain aches and pains that I carried with me, even when feeling at my best, were gone. I cannot explain how good it felt to be fit and well and I suspect that many of us take that feeling for granted.

I have never looked back and my illness does not recur. The doctor had told me that losing weight would help me. I knew I was a temple of the Holy Spirit and was ashamed of the way I was looking after His temple. I weighed 17 stone 6 pound at the time and I resolved to join a slimming club when I got back from the holiday. I wanted to work with God to become as healthy as I could, so that I could serve Him more effectively.

I went to a “Slimming World” class and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and help I received there. My weight started to go down and it was great! There were set backs but I am still slowly losing weight now. It occurred to me that it was easiest to lose weight when other things in my life were going well and I have come to believe that we need to address our emotional and spiritual needs if we are going to be healthy for the Lord.

It was a real blow when the “Slimming World” class I was attending closed. A number of people from my church were also members and it was obvious that without the support we were floundering. I prayed about it. As a church we are trying to reach the community we live in. A member had already suggested to me that we should open our own slimming club. As I prayed I felt God saying, “Go on, do it. You could do it for me.” God lead me to think about the thousands of people each week who go to a slimming club in a church hall but never get any closer to Him. The idea of N.I.M.O.S. began to form in my head and would not go away. In the end I ran it by my husband and then my sons. I trust their judgement and I knew they would be truthful. I expected them to tell me that it was a really silly idea but one by one they told me it was a good idea and I should do it. Then I ran it passed my pastor and got the same response.

I began to think of all the difficulties. A pair of medical scales would cost hundreds of pounds but Downs Baptist Church said they would loan me the money. As a church we do not have a building so where could I hold the meetings but St. Patricks Catholic Church said we could hold our meetings there. The local Anglican and Methodist churches were also supportive. I believe God smiled at the idea of it being an inter-denomination initiative and so in May 2006 N.I.M.O.S. started.