It was while lying those long weary days on the bed that I was made to see that for ten long years I had been deceiving myself.

Instead of being a Christian and being prepared to die, I was still in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity, and if God had taken me away during that sickness, it would have been with a lie in my right hand.

Now when I look back on those long years spent in sin and in self-deception, I wonder at God's loving kindness and patience in sparing me still to show forth in me His goodness and forbearance.

Truly it is of His mercies that I was not consumed.

How often I taught others and talked to them of the love of Christ, and yet I had not that love myself.