However, the mum-of-two wasn’t prepared for that service to be where she’d find answers to her questions about life

Now a committed Christian, the school science technician has revealed how she found the answers to all her questions in the Bible.

Jackie, 57, was brought up to go to Sunday school but stopped going to church aged 14. She said she went through life

without thinking about God, until she started a degree in history and English literature.

One of the modules was philosophy and this raised questions that Jackie hadn’t thought of for a long time.

She said: “The module that we did was about belief and belief systems, and it was at that point that I actually started thinking

about God.

“I’d always been told that God was real but I’d never felt it. It had never been personal.”

So Jackie decided to do an Alpha Course but admitted that she only attended because she was just ‘going through the motions’.

She said: “It just didn’t seem real to me. I was just enjoying learning things.” Then, in Christmas 2003, she

was invited to a carol service at Cornerstone Community Church in Eccles, Manchester, by its pastor Stan Smith.

My daughter-in-law’s father, who’s a pastor, invited me to their carols by candlelight service,” she explained. “I went out of sheer politeness. It was the first time I’d stepped foot in a church in a long time.

“I went in as an outsider and I think an act of collective worship is a very warm, reassuring thing. It draws you into these people and into an atmosphere and you don’t get that anywhere else, except in a place where there’s Jesus.

“There was this overwhelming feeling of warmth and I thought there’s something going on here and maybe I should find out more about it.”

So when the pastor announced he was running a course called Discovery – similar to Alpha – in the new year, Jackie signed up.

She said: “It was during this course that it all started to become real to me. I finally saw it as the truth. I actually believed

it rather than just learning the facts.

“Up to then, I’d always had problems with the resurrection and the immaculate conception.

Then it just hit me like a ton of bricks – if God can create the universe, what’s an immaculate conception?

And now Jackie enjoys being part of the Christian family. She said: “Having faith is one of life’s great reassurances. You’re

never on your own and if you’re in a fix some people may go and see a therapist, whereas a Christian will sit down and pray.

“The process of praying and talking things through is great. Whatever quest ions we have

there’s always an answer in the Bible.”