“True Identity” is the title of Rising Hope’s first single, now available to purchase on iTunes, with a video, starring Andrew’s daughter, that can be watched below. He says he was particularly inspired by the psalmists and King David, who “turned his anger, mourning, frustration into songs”.
The question of identity was one that struck Gardiner deeply. When he was pulled out of his job because of his illness, he was forced to ask: “What am I now I’m not a minister?”
He said: “I felt like I’d been mugged, everything had gone. When that 50-hour week job is taken away, who are you now?”
Gardiner wants to inspire the life of the church with the profound message about what it means to find one’s identity in Christ.
He has received numerous responses from those who have thanked him for the words he has shared.
“I would cry if I tried to tell you about them. In the middle of the horrible darkness, to have helped somebody…God is still at work, I can see that. I’m not abandoned. God is still faithfully ministering through me, just not in a way that I would ever have chosen.”
Andrew says that he and his family have most clearly seen God’s faithfulness through the support of the local church he once pastored.
“We’ve discovered our church is just the greatest church in Christendom. They have been fantastic. When the minister who serves the church becomes the one in need, that’s when you find out what kind of church you belong to. My house looks like a florist.”
Andrew has found much grace in his suffering, though he is clear that “I don’t want to be where I am.” He has found solace in the words of 2 Corinthians 4. “I’ve been hanging onto that. You don’t always feel those verses. Sometimes it feels like you are being crushed and destroyed. I say them in faith.”
He is currently undergoing his third course of treatment, now focussing on the multiple smaller cancers that have spread to his liver. He continues with his creativity, and plans to release more songs, and find a publisher for his book, soon.
Andrew closes with this word of encouragement: “God is good, God is loving, God is faithful. Cancer is horrible, it’s devastating, destructive, robbed me of everything…There are times when I really struggle with it. That does not take us away from the faithfulness of God, even in dark times.”
