Having been diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, God promised Kate Nicholas that she ‘would not die, but live and declare the works of the Lord.’ When she survived against all the odds, she dedicated her life to this mission.
Yet seven years later, the cancer returns with a vengeance. Desperately ill, Kate sinks beneath the waves of consciousness to the ocean floor where she experiences a profound encounter with God. As she seeks to understand and recapture that experience, she discovers a contemplative practice that offers her a deeper way into the presence of God, which she describes in her new book To the Ocean Floor.
Kate, can you tell us a little about yourself?
I am a Christian author, broadcaster, speaker and cancer survivor. I also spent thirty years working in the media as a national journalist, editor, and more recently as global communications chief for the Christian aid agency World Vision. I also preach at the Amazing Grace church of St Peter and St Paul in my local town of Olney, Buckinghamshire. Words have always played a huge role in my life, but it took a cancer diagnosis to turn me into an author.
Why did you decide to write To the Ocean Floor?
In 2021, after seven glorious years in remission, a routine mammogram revealed that the cancer had returned with a vengeance. At first, I began to record the physical details of my cancer journey but then God took me deeper. The road I travelled was not easy – and it brought me to the very borders of death – but it was also a time of profound discovery, an inner journey into the mystery of God. And even in the midst of illness, I felt compelled to record what God was showing me; to explore and to share what one reviewer called ‘the richness to the be found at the border of life’s journey.’
Who have you written this book for? Is it just for those who are facing cancer?
While I write openly about some quite difficult experiences as I went through cancer treatment, this is ultimately a book about hope. It’s about the fact that our reality is far more mysterious and exciting than we can ever imagine and that we can have a deeper and more profound connection with our creator. This is a book for anyone who seeks assurance of God’s presence in all circumstances.
The title has a deeply profound meaning for you – can you share a little about why you chose this?
The title To the Ocean Floor refers to an extraordinary experience on one of the darkest days of my journey. Desperately ill with sepsis, I sank beneath the waves of consciousness where I experienced a mystical encounter with God that transcended imagination or words. As I returned to the surface, I was haunted for a deep nostalgia for the connection that I felt on the ocean floor of my soul.
The theme of water seems to run throughout my writing; it first appeared in my memoir Sea Changed and I have reflected on the fact that water flows through the pages of the Bible and is symbolic of the Spirit of God.
In your first memoir Sea Changed, which charted your initial cancer journey, you said that God promised that you would not die but declare the works of the Lord. So, having been diagnosed with cancer for a second time, can you share a little on how this news impacted your faith?
The best way I can describe it is that I felt ‘be-wildered;’ lost in the wilderness – and I cried out to the Lord ‘Why?’ And in response, I was reminded that wilderness times are not without purpose. That it was in the harsh wilderness of the Sinai desert that God taught the Israelites his lessons for life. And when Jesus was also driven into the wilderness after his baptism, it wasn’t because God was displeased with his son but because he knew that these forty days of separation and solitude were an essential preparation for this earthly ministry. In fact, for others like the Apostle Paul, wilderness times were seen as a time of privacy and contemplation. It was a place of being rather than doing, where within the silence they were able to discover a new closeness with God.
This book is deeply personal, and charts some of the worst experiences of your life. It must have been hard to revisit this – how did you find the writing experience?
I find that the process of writing helps me to see more clearly how God is at work in my life; to see a divine pattern behind the seemingly random occurrences. And as I wrote this book, I was amazed by all the synchronicities, God-incidences and connections that revealed themselves. Albert Einstein once said that there are only two ways to live your life; as if nothing was a miracle and as if everything is a miracle – and the process of writing helped me to recognise the miraculous amidst the pain.
You go on a personal journey of discovery to recapture the deep connection with Jesus you find in your darkest hours, which you explain in this book. Is there one thing that you discovered/ one piece of advice that you could share to help anyone looking for a deeper faith themselves?
If I had one piece of advice it would be to follow Jesus’s example and take some time each day to go away by yourself to somewhere you can be alone to pray (Matt 14:23, Mark 6:46-47, John 6:15) and ‘Be still and know that [he] is God’ (Psalm 46:10).
You include poignant stories of how you saw God at work within the hospital and staff where you were receiving care. Can you give us one example of this?
I describe an interaction with one healthcare assistant who described the terrifying chaos and suffering in the initial weeks of Covid. When she in turn contracted the virus, she was convinced she was dying but didn’t want to be a burden. So, she lay alone in her flat, struggling to breathe, comforted only by her dog, who driven by some primal instinct would climb onto her chest. She told me that her dog saved her life. She was ill for four months, but as soon as she was on her feet again she returned to the ward, driven by a need to care for others that was too strong to ignore.
It was an appalling tale told without any self-pity and I realised that on those hospital wards, I was being granted a glimpse of his Kingdom; a diverse community of caring, selfless people, relentlessly putting others’ needs before their own and doing so with kindness, compassion and even love.
What was the most challenging element of writing the book?
Conveying the profundity of what was fundamentally an apophatic experience (one that transcends language). There are parts of the book where I am trying to describe what is effectively a different state of consciousness and I knew that simple prose wouldn’t suffice, but I just kept writing and the words flowed in what might be described as poetic form. I am not a poet, but I found that the words organised themselves in different ways as I shifted between describing a more conscious and rational experience and an intuitive one where experiences seem to rise from the unconscious.
And what was the most rewarding element of writing this book?
The way in which the words just seemed to flow out of me. I find the process of writing absolutely fascinating; there are times when you can sit gazing fruitlessly at a blank page for hours, and others when words just seem to tumble out of you, one upon another and arrange themselves into unfamiliar phrases that seem to come from another mind… A secular writer would probably call this being ‘in the zone’, but I know that it is something far more profound; the Spirit of God moving through us. For me it’s a sign that I’m on the right path, and an affirmation that I am ‘declaring the works of the Lord.’
Have you learnt anything new/ been reminded afresh about your own personal journey with God while writing this book?
I think it is fair to say that this whole experience challenged me to the core. I have always been an extrovert who got their energy from the world but being treated for cancer in the midst of a pandemic forced me to embrace solitude. I am also very action-orientated but my illness taught me the power of surrender. As a rationalist I have tended to prize conclusion of the head rather than the heart, but I have been profoundly changed by an experience of the awesome mystery of God that goes beyond human understanding.
What do you hope readers will most get out of reading this book?
It’s my prayer that To the Ocean Floor will provide reassurance to those who have wondered where God is in the face of challenges and inspire readers to go deeper in terms of their own intuitive connection with God.
In one sentence, how would you describe To the Ocean Floor?
To the Ocean Floor tells the story of my second cancer journey and how this experience became a gateway into a deeper connection with God.
Is there anything we can pray for you?
After 2 years of chemotherapy, bio-targeted treatments, radiotherapy and surgery I am once again in remission – praise the Lord. My prayer is that I may continue to ‘declare the works of the Lord.’
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